Grandmother

—

When it comes to reasons to live my grandmother are one of the biggest reasons. She is in a lot of ways more than a grandmother. She is a mother to me. When I was about 12 years old I was blessed to live with my grandparents. My parents surprisingly handed me over to them as they moved to the other side of our island. This act would give me many opportunities to excel in school and sports.

Now this doesn’t mean that living with them was a piece of cake. On the contrary, living with my grandfather was at times hard because he was a hard man. Cut out of the cloth of his generation there was only one way to live and that was his way. This would have gotten old fast especially as I became a teenager but what always calmed my emotions was my grandmother. Her soft voice and kind heart would remind me that living there wasn’t all that bad. She was the rock that kept me from rebelling and feeling alone.

Fast forward and now she is still the rock for many of her grandchildren and great grandchildren. At her age I’m amazed that she still has the energy to watch her great grandkids but she does. Not without grumbling but that doesn’t stop her from sacrificing her time and energy. My grandmother is an amazing person and I hope one day I’ll be able to pay her back for all the time she spent raising me but until that day comes I can’t leave this life.