Who lets you get away with anything? Eat whatever you want? Do whatever you want? Believes you are the most perfect person and loves you unconditionally? Your grandparents! This is the day to honor those wonderful folks. Every September on the Sunday following Labor Day Americans observe National Grandparents Day. This day was designed to honor our elders, our family heritage and our own family history.

The campaign to create this special day began in the 1970s by a West Virginian homemaker named Marian Lucille Herndon McQuade. After joined efforts by businesses, churches and political leaders the first Grandparents Day was proclaimed in West Virginia in 1973. That same year, West Virginia Senator Jennings Randolph introduced a Grandparents Day resolution to the U.S. Senate. However, once in the Senate the resolution dwindled in committee. Seeing this Mrs. McQuade and her troupe rallied support in the media and began contacting governors, senators and congressional representatives in every state as well as organizations for senior citizens. Then in 1978, Congress passed legislation proclaiming a National Grandparents Day and that it would be held on the Sunday following Labor Day. President Jimmy Carter then signed the proclamation. September was chosen for the holiday, to signify the "autumn years" of life.

A native of Fayette County, Marian McQuade and her husband Joe are the parents of 15 children. They have 40 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. She has served in numerous positions, including serving as a delegate to the White House Conference on Aging. In 1972, her efforts helped persuade President Richard Nixon to proclaim a National Shut-in Day. Mrs. McQuade has dedicated her life to advocating senior citizens.

While Mother’s Day and Father’s Day receive the fan fare they deserve, there is another holiday set aside for a family member who is typically overlooked. It is often difficult to even find a card honoring Grandparent’s Day and yet grandparents have always played a pivotal role in society. With an estimated 2.5 million grandparents raising grandchildren in this country, the contributions of grandparents are more important than ever before.

Grandparents provide children with a sense of place and self. In an increasingly transient society the oral history that grandparents provide makes otherwise faded photographs come to life and secures children with an identity that will last a lifetime. Even the pattern of speech and dialect in which grandparents share their stories help children better understand their roots. As a southerner it is always refreshing to hear my ninety-three year old grandfather tell stories about his childhood. The rhythm of his voice and the euphemisms he twirls off of his tongue are part of my unique make-up and culture. It is a force that reminds me that no matter how far I roam, rural Northern Florida will always go with me.

Beyond heritage, perhaps the greatest contributions grandparents make is that of unconditional love. Having a less than idyllic early childhood with an abusive biological father, my grandmother and grandfather became beacons in my own life. In a trailer next door to my grandparents’ home, my mother and I were sheltered in a safe haven of love and protection. One of my fondest memories is of my grandmother asking me to list out all of the people who loved me, with her reminding me of extended family members I might have missed. It was a ritual that was played out daily in those early, difficult years. The intensity of her green eyes and the softness of her smile were like lasers stripping away past hurts. Yet, as my mother worked to support us financially, my grandmother was careful never to over-step the bounds owed to a mother. She always deferred to my mother on any requests that would require travel beyond the boundaries of her yard but come to think of it there were a few places that managed to entice me away. There was a sense of security in their home that let me believe all was right in the world.

Every chance I get I return to the home of my grandparents. The paint outside is now faded and my grandfather’s prized canna lilies no longer spill across the side of the home but the interior remains unchanged. My grandfather can still be found in his recliner occupying the same corner as he did thirty years ago and the ancient TV continues to guard the living room. But not everything is exactly the same. Each time I walk through the door I long to smell fried chicken sizzling in the kitchen and hear the light-hearted welcome that only my grandmother could give. It’s been seventeen years since my grandmother spoke to me for the last time. The day she squeezed my arm and told me, “You’ll never know how much I love you.” Now it seems some how appropriate that she passed away on Grandparent’s Day, the day we officially celebrate our grandparents.

Family photographs still line the hallway shelves at my grandparents’ home. At the top is one of my grandmother as a young woman standing with her parents in front of their wooden home, a place that like them has slipped away with time. Black and white photographs intermingle with more recent ones, recording every wedding, birth and family reunion in our family’s life. The people in the photographs, both those I know and those known only through stories told by my grandparents, are as much a part of me as the hands I use to clutch the picture frames.

Grandparents give us an identity that can be transported from the rural south to the big cities and from the Pacific Islands to the Baltic coast. The love of grandparents and the love they provide are universal experiences that bind us beyond culture, religion and ethnicity. On Grandparent’s Day let us pause to celebrate our grandparents—those with us and those now with us only in our hearts. It is one day out of the year that has been set aside to publicly honor their contributions but it is every day that we should cherish the gifts our grandparents have given us.