Person of Influence

Growing up on my family’s farm, I learned quickly to interact with people. The workers seemed to be my best friends and I couldn’t wait to get home from school. I remember running into the packing house, where you guessed it, they packed the apples. Excited about what was to come next, I would go into the lunch room and grab a packet of microwavable popcorn and stick it in for 3:45. When it was done I would shake it up to mix around the butter, open it up, and walk around the packing house, sharing with everyone. I remember feeling loved and adored by the workers. Here was this little blonde, puffy haired girl walking around with a bag of partially burnt popcorn just wanting some attention and to show her ability to share and be kind. I think I got this quality from my Grandma. Before I had been old enough to just walk around the farm when I got home from school, I would always go to my Grandma’s house because along with my house it was on the farm. After preschool I would run into her house, already knowing what would happen. I would sit on the floor and play with the wooden stove and all of the silverware in the basement. I will always love the smell of that basement, if it’s because of the memories I had down there or the actual smell, I won’t ever know. My Grandma would call me upstairs and I’d have a chair and a lunch tray set up for me in front of the television. Blue’s Clue’s would just be coming on, my favorite. On my tray would be a peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwich and a glass of milk with two ice cubes. I hated having ice in my milk, but my Grandma thought I liked it and I couldn’t break it to her to tell her I didn’t, so years after years I drank the watered down milk. If she ever found out that I was holding back telling her about the milk, she would be furious with me. Not because I didn’t like it, but because all of the glasses of milk I drank, even as a teenager when I was at her house, that I couldn’t tell her. She would think it was ridiculous. She was the kind of woman who would give up anything she had to make others happy, always offering up food, money and her time. Even after she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and would forget where she was, or who I was, she still wanted to give everyone all she could. One day last year I got home from school and as usual grabbed an apple. There was my grandma in her jacket buttoned wrong and her pajama pants on standing inside. I said hello and proceeded with cracking open my apple and taking a bite. Without even acknowledging my hello she asked if I had liked apples, and then told me to take as many as I pleased and not too worry about paying. I knew right away she had no clue who I was, ever since I was little I would come home and take an apple, peach, water, anything I needed from the stand without paying. I told her thank you but the one I had would do. She followed by saying alright but she hopes to see me again sometime, maybe tomorrow. Although I wasn’t a stranger to her, she thought I was at that moment, and still she was offering up what she had. I have so many memories that involved my Grandma, making her struggle with Alzheimer’s and a couple months ago her passing away very difficult for me. Even though those memories are what made it so hard for me, I wouldn’t take them back for anything. My years with my Grandma made me who I am today, and I will never forget the mother, sister, grandma and friend she was to everyone.