Grandpa remembers active duty

Many grandparents are stepping in to raise their grandkids these days. Sometimes it's because the parents have been deployed.

Lloyd Lano and his wife Susan got to be full time grandparents a few years ago when his daughter was called for active duty in the Army.

His son-in-law was already serving in Afghanistan.

They brought their three grandsons, ages 7, 9 and 16, to live with them in Ramsey, Minnesota.

Lano himself was in the Navy for ten years. He's had three kids in the military. "Most of our family for generations has been either Navy or Marine Corps," he says proudly.

So when his daughter enlisted and then was called to active duty, he and his wife were happy to step in to "active duty" as grandparents.

"We had one in high school and we were going back to grade school stuff and Cub Scouts and that... things we hadn't done in years," Lano says with a laugh. It's obvious that he enjoyed his year as active duty grandpa.

Lano is retired from his work in the sound industry. He holds a job at Menard's "with all the other geezers" in his community.

I asked Lano if the kids were aware of the danger that their parents were in. He doesn't really think that it registered with them. He said that when you're a kid everybody's infallible and "nothin's going to happen."

Lano has lived a military life and told me there's a good chance that most people get out without a scratch. If he worries, he wasn't going to tell me about it.

Lano and his wife have raised a close-knit family. That year that they spent as custodial grandparents was valuable to all of them. They experienced the kinds of things that they remember experiencing as parents:

"We had one of 'em break his arm. Another one had a tooth extraction that wound up getting infected. It was like raising kids all over again."

Right now Lano's son-in-law is at Fort Bragg with the boys. Lano's daughter is serving in Iraq. She stays in touch with her boys by email and phone. They don't know how long she'll be there.

I asked Lano if they'd take care of the kids again. He says they're ready. "If Uncle Sam blows the bugle and my son-in-law has to go active again, either I will go down to Fort Bragg and stay with my grandkids or we'll bring them back up here again."

Lano credits his wife Susan as having "a knack with kids."

"She's the kid expert," Lano says, "She's really something else because she can have them eating out of her hand in two seconds." He remembers the way she'd get them to contribute to the household every day, doing dishes, taking out the garbage.

And Lano misses the boys now.

He had a special bond with each of them, but the sixteen-year-old was the one he gave the most attention to, because he was concerned that his oldest grandson would be the most vulnerable while his parents were gone. "He was a die-hard Vikings fan so I became an instant Packer Backer," remembers Lano. "When it comes right down to it I really don't know anything about football, but I just wanted to have that in common with him. I bought a Packers shirt and all that just to get it going."

And he misses how that grandson would shovel the sidewalk in the winter.

Lano brought me out to their backyard deck so I could see the American flag, with another flag hung below it. It's called the Blue Star Mother's Flag. There's a star for each son or daughter in the service. The Lanos' flag has three blue stars on it.

There's one for his daughter and one for his son-in-law.

And that grandson who shoveled the walks is now in the Army, too.

Resources:

Minnesota National Guard Family Network

Minnesota Veteran Families

Minnesota Military Family Foundation

When the Grandparents Raise the Kids: conversation with Minnesota Kinship Caregivers Association

wow - amazing story - thank you

Inspiring... especially considering how so many of us are managing to escape this war time with little or no sacrifice.

It's such a significant commitment when our parents commit to begin parenting all over again in their older years. Wow. Thanks for sharing this perspective.

Wow -- what a powerful piece! Nance always makes me pull the car over to listen and I'm often in tears. She cuts to the real heart of every story and this one is especially rough. I can think of nothing harder than to carry such an increadiably important and heavy load. Thanks for connecting us all throught these stories, to eachother; especially in such tough times.

Thanks for these comments. I'm looking forward to checking in with Lloyd Lano again, because I think he will be beginning "active duty" as grandpa once again, this time down at Fort Bragg. His wife has a job up here, so I wonder if he'll be single grandparenting!

Nanci O