My Childhood

2. Who was the most important person to you during most of your childhood? Your Mom? Your Dad? Another relative? A friend? An imaginary person? Show some examples in which you see how much influence this person (or imaginary person) had on you while you were growing up.

My grandma and I

As I was growing up I spent a lot of time at my great-grandma’s house. My mom was very important to me, and I cannot really say my great-grandma was the most important person, because her and my mom were equally important as I was growing up. Anyway, my great-grandma, aka Black Grandma, played a gigantic role in my childhood. (As a side note: she was my Black Grandma because between my mom’s and dad’s sides of the family, I did not know how else to differentiate the two grandmas. My mom’s mom, who is pale like my mom, became my White Grandma, my Dad’s mom was my Grandma Maria, and my dad’s grandma, who was darker skinned (As is the whole of my dad’s side of the family) became my Black Grandma.) Anyway, when I was only a few months (weeks?) old, my mom had to start working again and my Black Grandma offered to take care of me. My mom would have to drop me off very early in the morning, and my grandma told me stories about how I just cried and cried the first day my mom left. Apparently though, after that initial day my Black Grandma and I became best friends. That next morning after I spent the night, my grandma came into the room and I was awake just laying there. Smiling. I warmed up to her pretty quick. Growing up, I spent a lot of time at my grandma’s house. I learned how to crawl there, I learned how to walk there, and my grandma told me hundreds of stories. She lived in that house for 20+ years, and I grew up there. I moved a lot when I was younger, and that is the only house in my childhood that remained a constant. I always knew I was welcome to grandma’s house. It was a tiny little three bedroom and one bathroom house. But it was home. The last summer I spent with my grandma, 2012, I have fond memories of her telling me stories every day. Her favorite one to tell had to do with how I acted after getting a new red raincoat. She says that when my mom came to pick me up one day, I had put on my new raincoat and I was outside jumping in the puddles, happy as can be.

My grandma and my cousin, Annabella.

Personally, my favorite story she would tell me is how when I was a baby she would hold me next to the window when it was cold out side. She would touch her hand on the window then shake and rub her arms with her hands and go “brr!” and apparently, I would mimic her. She was a strong lady. I admire my great-grandma and respect her more than I respect anyone else in my life. She was not one to put up with bull-crap. For example, when she found out her husband was cheating on her, she woke him up in the middle of the night whispering, “Hurry! We gotta go! We gotta go!” and as soon as he got his shoes on and walked out the door, she slammed the door in his face and that was the end of that. She never let anybody do anything she didn’t want them to. And everybody respected my grandma, nobody told her no. She raised many many children, some of them not even her own. And I will never forget how much I learned from her. She was always there with open arms when I needed a hug, even if she was mad at me. She was never afraid to take a slipper to my butt when I was being a troublemaker, and she had respect and admiration from everybody that knew her. She passed away almost a year ago, and it is still hard not to send mail to her, or to not be able to call her. She has always been a huge part of my life. And I am very lucky to be able to say I am related to her.