I can’t believe you got in trouble for that today,” stated my best friend Luther, as we chugged along on our daily school bus route back to our homes. I was still in shock after receiving in school suspension earlier that day. A fifth grader was making fun of my clothes and pushed me, so I pushed back and argued with him until a teacher broke us up. Our principal decided we would both receive punishment since no one saw the beginning of the “fight.” As I began to stand up to get off at my bus stop, I responded to Luther, “I’m used to it. I will be okay.” My stop was at the corner of my neighbor Jan’s house and my Grandmother Linda’s house. My parents, Cory and Karen, both worked nine to five jobs, meaning me and my sister Kassidy needed somewhere to go after school. Subsequently, my Grandma Linda was disabled, meaning she was home all hours of the day. From kindergarten on she was our daily babysitter. “Hey baby,” my grandma said as she always did when I approached her house. Every time I came to her house, I felt at ease. I knew that no matter what I talked to her about, I would be heard by her. She would allow me to talk for hours on end about whatever came to my mind. Specifically, I would talk to her about school, friends, and my home life. Grandma’s house was bright apple red and smelled of her many dogs and the food she had prepared for my after-school snack. Today she had my favorite meal, chocolate milk with grilled cheese, ready for me to eat, along with some cards and marbles to play with. I would usually begin playing cards with her before I even took a bite, but that was not the case today. She could tell by the look on my face that I was upset. “What happened today?” she questioned me. I told her about my fight that happened earlier at school and I then awaited her usual advice, to “always be the better person,” and “turn the other cheek.” This went completely against what my father taught me, which was that if someone hits me, I hit back even harder.
After all, her advice really paid off in the long run, as I flew through the rest of elementary school without having anymore disciplinary issues. Sixth grade comes around and at this point me and my sister were no longer having to go to Grandma’s after school since our house was right next door. Even though we walked straight to our house from the bus stop now, we still stuck around Grandma’s house most days.
A couple of months go by after the start of middle school and I am now “boyfriend and girlfriend” with Jeannie Greene, a curly haired blonde girl I had in math class. After a few days, I talked to my Grandma about my girlfriend, which I had not done so with my parents yet. “Is she beautiful?, Is she Christian?, How’d you meet her?” were just a few questions among the hundreds she seemed to ask me. Although her grilling me with questions was quite annoying, the advice she gave me after has stuck with me forever. She told me to “always respect my girlfriend and make her feel like the princess that she is.” Her advice seems to come into play all the time in my life, and I feel extremely blessed to have someone like her to talk to. There were many nights that my parents would argue so loud that even my gaming headset was not enough to block the sound out. On these nights I would quietly slip out of the front door and go sleep with my Grandma in her bed. Whether I was physically crying or not, she would hold me and make me feel so much better. The Andy Griffith Show is her all-time favorite thing to watch, and she usually played it for us during our sleepovers. Her constant happiness she showed and her witty comments made it easy to forget why I went to her house in the first place. Without my Grandma there for me during those times I don’t think I would’ve made it to where I am in life now. I found myself becoming a super sad person who struggled with finding a reason to push myself in life. My Grandma, over the years, has shown me how beautiful life is and has guided me through thick and thin. “I wish I could zap you back to being little again,” she always tells me.
Now it is 2019, and I am a student at Florida State University. Over the years, my Grandma has acquired quite a taste for Facebook and keeping in touch with our family while we’re all on the go. The daily floods of heart emojis and kissy faces give me life, and she boosts my mood more than she will ever know. Seeing her every day growing up seemed so normal, and as if the situation would never change. As time passed by and choosing a high school happened, then applying for college happened, then college itself happened, I realized why people always used to tell me life was short. One minute I am playing Uno against Grandma Linda, and the next I am 150 miles away doing college course work. She lives in Dixie County in the same house I was partly raised in, which means she is not generally close to me. I do not see her as often as I wish, but I have still managed to see her and my family a couple of times this summer. Going back to her place feels just like it always has: warm, cozy, and at home. At the end of the day, I love my Grandma Linda very much, and I am forever indebted to her for all she has done.