Grandma

What would you do with $20,000? Everyone dreams of coming into a large sum of money. Would you buy a house, buy a car, go on a shopping spree or pay off debts, put it in savings, buy something for someone else? Let me tell you a story about how I spent my $20,000.

It all started on a cold winter day. It was too cold to do anything outside so I decided to clean out the attic and I found some old boxes that I packed away when my Grandma passed several years ago.

She was married to my Grandpa for 63 years. They had been through a lot together. Grandma and Grandpa were married right before Grandpa left for World War II. They made a promise to one another that they would start a family when Grandpa returned. Four years later, Grandma finally gave birth to their first child. They were elated. They both were only children so they wanted to have a big family. And they did! Grandma gave birth to 14 children. Two died as infants and she had several miscarriages. Along with that, they had 28 grandkids. I am number 18. Grandma left us each a couple of boxes with letters and drawings we gave to her as we grew up. She even gave us old pictures and memorabilia she collected from all her and Grandpa's travels over the years. The content in these boxes brought back so many great memories.

I was almost to the end of the second box when I saw a small black notebook. Grandma always kept address books and I thought this might be one. She would write everyone’s address and number and birthdate in these. I mean, with that many kids, grandkids, and the large amount of friends she gained over the years, I understood why she did this but I wasn’t sure how one ended up in my box. I opened it and it was not an address book at all! Its a book all about me. My achievements, funny things I used to say or do, when I lost all my teeth, when I got braces, my first boyfriend, my first car, and so much more. Grandma kept all of this written down for me. WOW! I couldn’t believe it! Towards the end of the book she had written me a lovely letter about all the things she had seen me go through and how proud she was of me. She even gave advice for the future about love, marriage, kids, careers and so on. It was the greatest gift anyone could ever give me. She told me she left one of these for each of her grandkids so that one day when she was gone, we would still have her with us. On the very last page she had written down the name of a bank and all the account information and a note that said when you find this, its all yours. Really? What was going on?

The next day I drove to the bank and gave them the account information and my driver’s license. Come to find out, this was a savings account in my name started when I was a child and Grandma made deposits once a month for several years totaling $20,000! I could not believe it! What would I do with it? I sat on this information for about a week. That was the longest week ever! I had trouble sleeping. I kept thinking about my Grandma and what she would want me to do with this money. Grandma was a frugal woman. She made most of her kids’ clothes, had a garden, cooked dinner every night, and took care of her things to make them last as long as possible. How could I use this money to honor the kind of woman my Grandma was and wanted us to be. I thought long and hard and finally came to a decision.

Early the next day I went to the bank and had $15,000 transferred into my personal checking. I decided I would book myself a nice week-long vacation to the beach, I paid off all my debt, then, to honor Grandma, I left the rest there, to gather interest with the certain knowledge that someday, when the time comes, I’ll be starting a savings account for my own children and grandchildren along with their own little black books.