Narrative Essay About My Grandmother

Religion has always been around for many years and will continue to live on. Since 2014, there are an estimated 4,200 different religions, all over the world each believing in different things Having their own set of rules and tradition that must be followed. Storytelling became a way to give people advice or telling people what would happen if they disobey their religious rules or tradition. In the story of a grandmother, it critiques religion for the way it can lead to snap judgments and a loss of freedom.

On the first day of eleventh grade It was just another sunny morning Until the phone started ringing And it was hard to believe what I was hearing How was it even possible that grandma was no more? My world shattered into a million pieces,

"Ok mom," I replied. "I'll get ready." So I went downstairs and i made myself breakfast. "The classic, toast with jelly," I said to myself. "I think i'll make some for mom too."

“As you comprehend this profound loss, let yourself cry knowing each tear is a note of love rising to heavens” (). The quote above is the best way to define how I finally started to understand why it was okay to grieve over the death of my Great Grandma. On November sixth 2015, was the day my Great Grandma was pronounced dead. The day she died I will not ever forget because it was like I was hit in the chest with a baseball bat that I was not warned would come. When she died no one in my family seemed to not know what to do with themselves, everyone was put on a break from not being sure of how to deal with the lost of a person we all cherished. After a couple months of everyone being away from each other, I realized this is not the way she

I will tell you a tale of a woman of great success. This is a woman that has inspired me to be something great one day and to never give up trying. Though she may be growing into her elderly years she has lived a very challenging, joyful, loving and successful life. She is a woman of great faith and character, she is my grandmother.

I was walking down Morden Hall Road while the sun seemed to gleam at me. The light from the enigmatic sun reflected off a car window and to my immense surprise. I thought I saw my grandmother quarrelling animatedly with someone. A dark blue isolated cloud obscured the sun and DRIP! DROP! Large drops of rain fell on me, so I rummaged for my umbrella in my school bag. Turning around, the two people had vanished. Where was my grandma? Who was she disputing with? I was apprehensive as she was not as stable when she was younger.

I have never wielded as much sorrow as I did that day. The stench of dried, salty tears thronged the room as her funeral beckoned the sadness that reached for my heart. I could hear the soul of everyone she was ever close to. My great grandmother was the beginning of this very family. My family. What is depressing most, is that she passed away 2 weeks before Christmas, the holiday that celebrates the person she idolized most…

“I stayed up all night doing it, dad. Don’t tell mom!” He scampered away to show his two little sisters, Daphne and Sadie. I walked into the kitchen and there was my wife standing by the stove frying up some eggs for breakfast. Her light brown hair was in a low bun and her apron covered in random assortment of ingredients from the baking that she love so dearly.

The warm sun was shining through the sliding glass door but it didn't feel as bright inside. When i used to come into this room I could smell the old perfume and see the little old brown recliner which sat the smile on my great grandmother's face. I would hold her hand forever….or at least it felt that way. We would look out the huge window right next to the chair and see the chirping and flying birds as they sung their sweet songs. I’d stand in front of that chair which she sat on and each time she told me how beautiful I was. I'm sorry now i didn't see her more often like i wish i had. I wish she didn't go to the hotel in the clouds but it was for the better. She was in pain. Who knew one fall could make a big difference.

My gran was a kind and sweet women but admittedly stubborn, however it was probably her stubbornness that kept her going in life as she had overcome many battles throughout her long life. Many of which were painful mentally for us and physically for her, despite endless times the doctors said there was no chance of pulling through, somehow in the end my gran would prove the doctors wrong and they would call her the miracle women, looking back I see why, as a lot of the times we would hear "there's not much hope "to being told a week or so later it seems like she's on the mend to getting better and should have a good recovery. Thinking about it this is what probably made my grans passing harder for me reason being i wasn't too prepared for the time she would actually pass.

Icy fingers gripped my arm in the darkness, I took my attention from the starry sky to look from the hand that touched me up to the face of my Grandma. She shared a kind smile with me emphasizing her rosey cheeks warming my own despite the winter snow falling around us. My little sister Sara squealed with glee as our shepherd pup Macy hopped around her, wagging her tail so fast the entire back end of her body would follow in sync. Grandma took a deep breath as she rewrapped her rope around her waist, “How does a cup of tea sound?” her voice was soft & kind, “I think it is time we all should get some rest.” I answered glancing back at sara who was still squealing with joy as she watched the pup continue to roll in the glistening pillow of snow surrounding the small patch of land we call home. She nodded in agreement and reached her arm out for me to support her inside.

Peeping through the blinds, I wave goodbye to my mom in her red, Mercedes Benz, and to my dad in his white, Toyota van, watching them go opposite directions towards work. I stumble across the couch, leaving indents from my knees, and walk into the kitchen where my grandmother stands with her familiar gray mug filled with steaming coffee and two cubes of sugar. As I walk to her side at the counter, I reach into a pink, plastic fruit basket containing ripe treasures purchased from Lion’s Supermarket. Two fruits: an apple and an orange, immediately sit upon my two hands. Shoving the round red into my grandma’s eyes, I await an answer. She squints, wrinkles deepening on her forehead, as if the apple was the challenge question on a math test. “Or...ange,” she says. I shake my head, and sound out the beginning letters of the fruit I was offering, until the word, “apple,” struggles out of her mouth. We both smile at the accomplishment as she points down at the orange and correctly states its name, confident in fashion. This calls for celebratory peeled orange and sliced sweet apple. Two weeks and two fruits, teaching my Chinese grandma some English words marks the biggest accomplishment of my first grade self.

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” I never quite understood this quote by Maya Angelou until I reflected on my time with my grandma. She lived in a small white house with blue shutters and was all Italian. At her house, I could always find three things: pastene, Muenster cheese, and love. In kindergarten and first grade, I got dropped off there by the bus after school. I remember walking off and up to her screen door. She would always be sitting right inside on her white rocking chair, waiting by the door just for me. For whatever reason, even though I already had one brother and sister, both younger, I would be the only one there with her for a while. She would sit me down in her brown, soft, prickly, reclining chair and put a little card table in front of me. She would give me the connect the dots from the Sunday paper, let me watch cartoons on her TV, and make me chocolate milk and pastene. Pastene is macaroni with butter and a bit of egg, cooked together. It was something that you would always have if you went to her house. Trust me, it’s the best thing in the world.

At just over five feet tall, she was the kind of woman that you saw on the street and knew to move out of her way. Her demeanor was strict, her hands tied with thick blue veins, criss­crossing over her thin, frail fingers.

On May 24th, it was a beautiful hot and sunny afternoon. I found myself sitting across from my grandmother named Nancy Parish whom my family nicknamed “Meme”. We met at her favorite lunch spot, Nordstrom’s café, which was a halfway point between my apartment and her log cabin home. My sixty-seven-year-old grandmother told me she was tickled pink and delighted that she was being interviewed for my final paper. For this interview, I decided to focus on her marriage to my grandfather named Wade whom we nicknamed “Papa Wade”. My grandfather passed away from lung cancer about fourteen years ago. He and my grandmother were happily married for over fifty years. My grandmother has always been brief and vague when I would bring up the topic of her marriage to my grandfather. Because their marriage seemed so perfect I always found her discomfort around the topic strange. So, for my interview and own personal interest, I decided to dig deeper in search for an explanation.