The Influence of a Grandmother

The influence of my Grandma.

My grandmother has always been a major influence in my life she had always treated me with kindness and respect.  She believed in me through all of the twist and turns in my childhood life. My Grandmothers' influence made a real difference in the way I treat my children.

My first memories of my grandmother are were when I was three.  My grandparents had bought me a train set for my third Christmas.  Grandma was in the kitchen as she normally was preparing Christmas dinner.  The house always had a wonderful smell around the holidays from her mouth watering delicious chicken and dumplings and cornbread.  My grandfather and my Uncle Mike had taken me downstairs to to show me something.  To my surprise their was a four and a half foot by six foot piece of lumber on it's side.  My Uncle Mike who was a grizzly man with hairy arms, thick black hair, and who stood several feet above my head picked me up and turned me around.  My grandpa looked at me and said, your grandmother and I bought you this and your uncle helped me put this together.  When they displayed to me this large tracked piece of engineering made of lumber, plastic, and metal. I was ecstatic, of course I asked the famous question, “When do I get to play with it?” My grandfather who was always very kind to me replied, We will see if we can get it up stairs after dinner. Then my uncle handed me a shoe box of train cars and we went back upstairs.  When we got upstairs, I rushed through the rest of my family members and flung my arms around my grandmother and told her thank you.  My grandmother who always has had very kind eyes and a loving heart looked at me and said, You're welcome ask she hugged me with her warm arms.  My grandmother is a short woman, with short gray hair that was kept in a contemporary style, and her voice always has a gentle, soothing tone that only a grandmother has. 


My grandmother has always been there whenever I needed her.  The summer before I started Kindergarten. She would take me with her to her painting classes in Illinois, which was always exciting to me.  I would draw and sketch while she was painting in her classes.  After her classes were over all of her friends would always ask me how I was and look at my drawing and say you must take this after your grandmother.  After we would return to my grandparents house Grandma would start cooking and I would go play with my train set.  My grandpa had died earlier that year.  After he passed the house always seemed to be missing something.  For a while I would go in the basement and pretend to be helping grandpa organize his workbench.  I never told my grandmother what I was doing because I was afraid it would hurt her feelings.  For the most part I stayed with my grandmother because my mother was working two jobs and when she was not at work she was sleeping.  My grandmother always made me feel like I could stay there as long as I wanted. I had my own room that had a picture of my mom hanging on the wall from when she was in high school. My bed was a full sized bed with a blue comforter made from a very soft textured material.  The rooms’ walls were covered with a very dark wood looking paneling.  The door nob's were plated with a brass coating.  I had a large window that had a view of the front yard.  My train set was under the bed.

My mother eventually got remarried in a fall season.  When that occurred some of my time with grandma was replaced with family time.  The summer had finally come, Finally I got to spend more time with grandma.  I would pack a bag for a couple of days and away I went.  Grandma started introducing me to art and crafts, reading and pronunciation, and my stepfather had gotten me a pellet pistol.  I had so much things to do at grandmas house and not enough time to do them.  Eventually my hobbies had a flaw.  I had run out of supplies, and worst of all the sparrows were getting thick.  The sparrows were so bad that year, “the local government” as my grandma would call the city police, who had been shooting off blank shoot gun loads to thin out the population of the breed.  Every time we would wash grandma's car, not even five minutes later the bird feces would be all over it again. That meant only one thing, I had to find a job.  I talked to my grandmother about my financial situation.  She offered me an allowance for helping her with cleaning the house and getting rid of those pesky birds.  As I was hunting the sparrows I remember hearing the sparrows song and wondering of the bird was singing the American pie song by Don McLean.  Some times my grandmother would watch me as I exterminated the species in her yard.  She would reply with your almost as good as that Roy Rogers.  I never understood that statement until Nick at Nite the television station started playing reruns of the program.  On a good day I would have to fill grandma's burn barrel with as many as 15 to 20 birds.  Later she would burn the pile with other yard waste

My grandmother was also very educated for a woman of her era.  She had received her diploma and attended some college.  For a woman who was raised amongst those who experience the great depression and had a family of twelve children that was a major achievement.  She helped me with my home work a lot.  She taught me some arithmetic.  Most of all she taught me the values.

Later on in high school I had some health problems.  I missed a lot of school and was at the doctor most of the time.  For three years doctors could not pinpoint what my illness was caused from.  I would vomit blood and acidic fluids for most of the morning.  The winching pain and the felling of having the endless pits of flames from the home of the fallen archangel Lucifer in my stomach was such a distraction I couldn't keep my head up in class.  My teachers would send me to the schools nurse and she would say I needed to stop drinking red kool-aide and wasting her time and handed me some dry salted crackers that would make my stomach fell like someone put a small tornado in my belly.  She would call my grandma whenever I had been there so long and she was tired of having me in her office.  My grandmother was the only person I felt was on my side.  She had told me she was always very sick when she was my age.  After her persistence with the doctors I was taken to a specialist, Dr, Micheal Freeman and he referred me to Cardinal Glennon Hospital.  At the hospital I was diagnosed with a hiatal hernia and a sever case of acid reflux.  The expression on my grandmother's face said it all.  After all the run rounds and myths of my faking an illness from the school she had her gratification.  The sinister grin and concerned look mixed together with the evil eyes she was shooting across the room to my mother who was on the phone with my stepfather.  She looked as if she was ready to laugh in someone’s face after she spit on them.  My mother shortly got off the phone and said they found it I knew their was something wrong with you.  I am still not quite sure but I could have sworn my grandmother's eyes rolled as the words left my mothers mouth.

After returning home my grandmother knew that the problems were still going to be amongst the school staff due to things that were said prior to my diagnosis.  Later on that year she told me, ”as long as I try my hardest and due the right thing I would do fine and she would be proud of me.”
Through the years my grandma’s belief and influence was a major part of who I am and how I act.  I try to use the same dedication that my grandma showed me with my children so that her influences are passed to the next generation.  Just like my grandmother I never want any of my children or my children's' children to feel as if they are alone with only one person who believes in them.