I'm Still the One

When I think of a good person, I think of my grandma. She was probably one of the best people that I knew and she was the type of person that was not only willing to talk to anyone that she met, but she was willing to listen to them too. My grandma grew up with four sisters, and her mom was the head of the household. Now, realize that her mom was paying all of the bills and taking care of all of the groceries during a time where there weren’t very many women that worked outside of the home. The concept is not only inspiring but motivating.
Anyhow, my grandma grew up poor, and the food that was put on her table would come from the tip money that her mom, who worked as a waitress, received from her daily shift. Her mom would go to the store and pick up the groceries for the night and come home. There wasn’t too much of a fuss over what they ate, because they had to eat what was put in front of them. That was just how it was.
When my grandma eventually started going to school, she didn’t like it at all. She got bullied, and if I remember right, I think that the only reason that she actually sought out to accomplish the task was for her mother. She met my grandfather at the tail end of her school days. He was in the military at the time, and since they didn’t have a car, he would walk across town to see her every day.
The two of them married, and since they didn’t have a lot of money, they lived with my great grandma until they could get on their feet. They got a car, but it caught on fire, so they had to get another one. They eventually got a house, but my grandpa had to work two jobs at one point to afford their bills. This was difficult for him, and since they had almost immediately started to have children, my grandma was left home tending to the house and their kids, not able to help him by working outside of the house.
At some point, this changed, probably when the kids got into school and my grandma got a job so she could help with the bills. This helped her, because she was able to make it so my grandpap didn’t have to work so many hours to take care of their necessities. She worked this job for several years, and then, one day, the place that she worked for was robbed. She was there during the robbery. She was there to hear the criminals walking by her and she wasn’t sure if she was going to make it. She was blessed. She did make it through,but she suffered a heart attack right after the incident, and it was at that point that she decided to retire.
Now, this woman had been through all kinds of things. She grew up poor. She had her car catch on fire. She had to live with her mom so she could get on her feet. She had to watch her husband exhaust himself working two jobs just to keep their house afloat, and she got robbed. Ironically, she was the reason that a lot of people in my family didn’t have to go through these types of situations. She made sure that the people around her were taken care of, and despite all of her experiences, she never wished them on others.
In fact, I grew up not even knowing all of the things that my grandma had to experience. I just thought about her as my grandma. She was the person that brought me to the movie theatre and hid snacks in her purse. She was the one that would take me for the weekend and let me pick out a movie at the local video store. She took me to the zoo, and she even went with me and my mom when we went to see Sesame Street live and the Ninja Turtles.
When I was young, I hardly heard my grandma complain about anything. I didn’t even really hear her cuss. She taught me how important it was to be nice to other people regardless of their lifestyle. She also showed me how to give back to the community. In fact, my grandparents took me to one of the first charity events that I ever went to. Her entire life revolved around her faith, her family and taking care of others.
When she went to the grocery store, she would greet the people that she ran into. She learned the names of the people that worked at those stores and she listened to stories about their lives and gave them advice. During the holidays, she would even give the associates that helped her out in these places gift cards so they had a little something for themselves or for their families.
She was also big on giving things away to the homeless shelters in the community. She would make blankets with my grandpa that she gave to the men’s shelter in the winter. She would buy small crafts for children that she gave to shelters that housed women and their kids. She would buy baby clothes for the drive that her church had to help new mothers that might not have the resources to pay for those items, and she would volunteer at her local church to help with the business affairs that they had to tend to.
Though my grandmother helped a lot in her community, she didn’t forget about her family. She always bought presents for everyone’s birthday. She would do her best to search throughout the year for the things that each person liked and personalize their presents. When someone in her family needed a job, she hired them to do gutters or mow the lawn, and if there was someone that needed something simple like their car fixed or shoes, she would give them the money to get the items required.
My grandma never had anything easy, but she was thankful for everything that she had. Sometimes, people were mean to her, and there were plenty of times where she experienced pain or hardship, but she never let that affect who she was. Up to the day that she died, she was thinking of those around her. She did her best to be a good person, and she lived her life in faith, bound and determined to be kind to the people around her and give what she could to make everyone else’s life a little bit easier. She really cared about others, sometimes more than herself.
So, in retrospect, it is possible to maintain your morals and the person that you are even when going through a difficult period of your life. It might be difficult to do this, and the experiences that you have might take a little time to recover from. However, maintaining your personality, beliefs, and goals might suit you better in the long run, and it might even touch the life of someone close to you.