I was born in the middle of the afternoon on a hot day in August. My maternal grandmother missed her 50th high school reunion when she heard I was on the way.
My grandmother was with us when, six days after I was born, my mother was at home helping my father fix the leg on a large machine when it fell, knocked her down, and broke her back. My father couldn't wait for an ambulance, so he took the leaf of our kitchen table, strapped my mother to it, and took her to the hospital. As she was being strapped to her makeshift wooden stretcher, she said to her mother, "Take care of my babies." My mom still gets choked up when she talks about that. I can't blame her. Things wouldn't get back to normal for her for many weeks, but her recovery and the care for my brother and me would not have gone so smoothly had it not been for my grandmother.
After my mother recovered and was no longer on bed rest, my grandmother would get up early to open a convenience store in the small town where she lived and then drive to our house to take care of my brother and me while my parents worked. She was always there for us. There wasn't anything she wouldn't do to take care of us. She even knew exactly what to do if my brother was upset or angry. To this day I'm not sure anyone has had the effect on him that she had. In many ways she was the cornerstone of our family.
And so, just over a year after my birth, the doctors said there was nothing they could do and my grandmother's daughters and their husbands watched helplessly as the cancer slowly took her away from everyone she loved. There isn't a day where she isn't desperately missed. I never got to know her, but I've come to miss the woman so many people speak so highly of.
There's so much about her I don't know. I don't know what her cooking tasted like, how her hugs felt, or what she smelled like. I don't know what she sounded like beyond a short video tape we have of her.
However, there are things about her I do know. I know she was dedicated and that she loved her family immeasurably. I know she was a worry-wart and that my father and uncle would playfully tease her about it. I know in her younger years she was very attractive although she was very shy. I know she gave everything she had for her children. I know she was funny, but more than anything I know she was loved because neither of her daughters can speak much of her without coming to tears. She was their rock and - even though she isn't here - I like to think that everything that was good and right and noble about her can be seen in her children. I like to think that the stories she would have told and the wisdom she would have passed down to me can still be found in her children. I like to think the same about both of my grandfathers.
There are so many beautiful things I could have learned from my departed grandparents. The essentials - like being a good man, taking responsibility, and doing what is right - may not be impossible to learn, but such things might have come easier to me with their help and coaching. But, because they were absent when I would have been able to remember them, there are things about them I will never know.
So, at the age of 24, there's quite a bit I still don't know about myself because I don't know much about those I have come from. Sure, I know a lot about the day-to-day person I am, but I don't know how to honor the legacies of those whose lives led to mine. I don't know much about the person I'm able to be. I've been in search of that person for a long time. My grandparents would have wanted me to experience all of the good things they experienced and more, but my hope is to find in myself all that was good in them. Maybe then I will have honored their legacies by becoming the good man they would have hoped for: a man they would be proud to call their grandson. I owe them that much.
