Dear Diary

Dear Diary

Driving through the familiar streets where I grew up. It's as if time has stopped, nothing has changed, the corner store is still running, Mr. Brown's gas station hasn't changed. Park where everybody would go, and hangout. This is a small town with one main road which is considered downtown. Here in Texas not everything is bigger, especially this town. I haven't been back to this town since I left for college many years ago, I built a life in New York City, graduated from NYU and never looked back. Graduating with a degree in journalism has always been my dream. Here I was again back to the town that I left so many years ago to say goodbye to the one person that I love the most, my grandmother.

As I'm driving down the main road of the small town I used to call home I can still see some of my old friends' homes. I can still see some of the dirt roads where we would go exploring when we decide not to go to school. While driving by, I started playing with my class ring that I had on my chain around my neck, one of the few pieces of jewelry that I wear. I've never worn a lot of jewelry. The stud earrings I have for my mother and my sister that they gave me the day I graduated New York University. The chain was a gold Figaro chain that my grandmother had for years and I would play with this as a child. She told me when I graduated high school it would be mine and I've worn it ever since and then when I graduated high school I put my ring on it and it's been there for years. I always thought of it as a little lucky charm. anytime I got nervous or felt alone i would just play with it and I felt as if I was with her. I felt her Embrace and it was her words and it was her comfort to know that's where ever i went i would have her next to me.

As I pull-up to my grandmother's house my mother and my sister are there outside waiting for me, ever since the funeral and ever since the sit-down with the attorney letting us know that my grandmother left us her home and left us $ 20,000 each it's been quite a lot of emotions and a little surprises throughout the way. My grandmother's home wasn't a big home but it was her home. It was important for her, for us to be able to clean out her home and keep what we could so that way we wouldn't forget about her. She had this fear that we wouldn't remember her when she was long gone and she always wanted to make sure that our children, our children's children (even though I don't have any of my own) would remember where we came from. I Haven't been in her home for years so I didn't know what to expect, getting out of the car, my sister and mother telling me to hurry up. I've been waiting for a long time ready to go. We start walking towards the sidewalk towards the front door. My mama unlocked the door and it's a grand entrance to the Past. My grandmother loved Furniture and loved pictures and boy did you have a lot. You can still smell her strong perfume in the home. As we go in, all three of us stand in the middle of the living room & just embrace the moment . she's gone. How do you move forward from this? How do you recover? How can you continue? doesn't hit you when somebody's gone until you've entered where they lived and you just feel them all around you. If you just picture them cooking something in the kitchen, you can just picture them on the couch talking to you. “ Make sure you do everything right, make sure you do it because you want to make sure you do it because it's what you want in your heart to be happy. My grandmother was always wanting to make sure that everything we do we do for ourselves and nobody else is to tell us what to do. She wasn't strict but she made it known that she never wanted us to struggle or anything she made us work for everything we wanted. We decided to divide and conquer. My sister took the kitchen, my mother took the bedrooms and of course it's me at the Attic. As I'm going up the stairs I hear the creaking of the steps. There was a lot of cobwebs and dust. It reminded me of a halloween haunted house. I know if my sister Sarah would have not made it up here so you would know I made it through. She had a lot of stuff. There were a few old chests from the 1920's-1930's so I started to work left to right and just go from there and see what we're repeating what we were selling but we were just going to get rid of it. As I opened the first chest I noticed she had a lot of notebooks, journals and it showed the last journal about a year ago, it was like a dear diary and as I opened it it's at the year 2001 and it started Dear Diary I love both of my granddaughters and I know that they both work hard but I am fearing what will become of Evelyn, what will become of her I feel she is settling I feel she is not using her full potential, I feel like she's using her talent for something that she does not love. Dear Diary, what should I do to make my granddaughter Evelyn my eldest really happy unless you can do better. As I read this I couldn't breathe how did she know?. I don't understand what was it that I said to make her think this way and I do tell my sister , which she took to my mother and everything my mom hears, to my grandma's line of communication. I kept reading through the little black notebooks that she had. She had one for every single year from the time that she was 16 and it was over a hundred books and so I just started Rumbling through them and I just picked one. She had a notebook of when she was in high school, meeting my grandfather how she thought it was the man of her life. She explained this man makes me want to become better. He pushes my potential that I never thought I had. I never knew what love is until I loved him becoming his wife. Will be a dream. As I read more and more she talks about how the struggle for money was, how my grandfather wanted her to stay home and raise their family and make sure that everything was taken care of but every single bone in her body said I need the help I need to make a contribution.

She started making pies and cookies and selling them around the neighborhood. She started doing laundry and she started sewing, making dresses, babysitting and doing anything she can to make a buck. she ended up saving almost $20,000. With those $20,000 the story within her journals she started her own business. She started helping her family and they became a power couple. In the last few Journals before my grandfather passed away she writes Dear Diary thank you for this man that came in my life, he always had faith in me and he always pushed me to be better see my daughter grow up and seeing her sisters grow up I hope they can find the love that I have had for the last 40 years I hope that they have the support and I hope that they have dreams big enough that motivate them to be strong. I reach their dreams no matter what comes our way. As I go through the little black books and continue reading the different chapters of my grandmother's life I start understanding it may be certain changes in my life has changed need to change I'm with a man that I think I love but I I don't feel the same love that my grandmother felt for my grandfather or vice versa. The job that I have I settled for it. am I really at my full potential? Questions start showing up in my mind and wondering if this is the life that I'm living? As, i continue to read through the journals that my grandmother left behind she leaves the detail of how she started her dream my grandmother had her own Salon,cosmetics and how she started it was with $20,000 she started her dream and because of that her dream became a huge dream which now we have inherited her Legacy or we can go ahead and pass it on or make something of it. If you work hard and save just a little bit you don't need a lot of money to start your dream. Maybe just save a little bit and start somewhere it'll become worth the wait. it'll become worth the work. I hope my family can remember to always work hard to always make sure to love themselves. It's been a few years since my grandmother passed away when I set up in her attic and Read her many journals, how everything that she said made sense to me at that time, the exact words I needed to hear. Ever since then my life has changed, I started in a positive relationship where I can feel that they have my back I don't feel alone, I feel loved have a family now I gave up my job and started the real job where I wanted to do, I wanted to work at I wanted to be a writer and with the $20,000 my grandmother's left me help me be able to build what I wanted to build. where I was able to publish my stories . As I sit in the front yard watching my husband play with our children, enjoying the breeze of the wind feeling the beautiful sun and I think to myself what will I leave behind what will my legacy be? how my grandmother left her Legacy and those little black books talking to us telling us the stories and every now and then we get together my sister, my mother and I read her little books a little different entry and how at that time when we hear them it makes it feel like she is still with us, guiding us. I was dreading going to her house that day. But, arriving and staying saved my life. And now we are closer than ever. As I looked at my beautiful family, I cracked open a brand new black book, wrote the date, and started, Dear Diary.