2011-01-10T18:27:00.000-05:00

So I'll start off with a little information about myself. I was laid off from my full-time job in late August of 2010 after having worked for 2 years. Since then I've been on quite an adventure, learning a lot about myself, what I want to do, what I can do, what I will do to get by. One thing I had been thinking about well before I lost my job was volunteering, something I didn't have the time or energy to do when I was putting in 10 hour days at the office plus 2 hours commuting time. So I've tried to make lemons into lemonade and figured if I wouldn't be working at least I'd have time to volunteer.

I ended up at 826 Boston, which is a great organization that helps kids in underserved areas of the city with homework and in particular, writing, so it's a cause near and dear to my heart. Since September I've been involved in helping with after school tutoring, where kids come to the 826 writing center and get help with homework, read, and respond to creative writing prompts. But I've mainly focused my efforts on in-school tutoring, where volunteers visit classes and help students (mostly high school) with writing assignments. The project I'm currently working on involves a class of amazingly creative kids who are a year or more behind in school and are in a special class that is designed to help them graduate. The aim is to give these kids some confidence in themselves and in their work. They have great stories to tell and we're trying to get them to tell them in personal narratives that will be published in a small book just for them.

So, along with the kids the tutors are doing the assignments and I thought I'd sh"are what I'm working on for my personal narrative. I decided to write about my grandmother. She's a bit on the outrageous side, and she's always been full of life and has been a bit of a mother figure to me, in place of my own who isn't part of my life. This is what I have so far...

My cousin was a beautiful bride. She didn't turn into a bridezilla, didn't ever yell or get mad. She was just happy as hell to be marrying her best friend and to have everyone around to share the moment. When she threw the bouquet I was standing in the crowd of single girls in my lavender gown and Emily tossed her flowers straight into the chandelier. She laughed, and so did we.

I went to visit my grandmother at her table across the dance floor. She looked pale in the glow of the votives, but I was swept up in the chaos of the evening, as was everyone else. We were so swept up, in fact, that none of us knew my grandmother had had a heart attack sometime in the middle of the wedding. She, of course, refused to tell anyone that something was wrong until the weekend was over. On Monday she called my aunt who drove her to Brigham and Women's.

. . .

"How old are you now?" my grandmother asked me. I was sitting on the couch with Emily, who stayed quiet.

"Ten," I said, which made Emily thirteen.

"Ten? And do you have a boyfriend yet?"

She was looking at both of us now. "No," we said in concert, trying to smother giggles.

"No? What's wrong with you? By the time I was ten I had friendship bracelets from all the boys in school."

We didn't know it yet, but this was only the first of many conversations we'd have with grandma about men.

. . .

"She's okay, but her cholesterol is through the roof. I'm going to see her in the hospital tonight if you want to come." My father relayed the news to me nonchalantly. The army had taught him a particular way of dealing with mortality.

"Yeah I'll come."

At 23 I only had one dead grandparent. My mother's father had passed away during my first year of college. Luckily I had visited him earlier that week--I hadn't seen my mother or her family for months, maybe a year before that. He looked frail and could barely eat or move on his own. A few days later he was gone.

I stepped into my grandmother's room with my stomach slamming itself around inside my body. She looked frailer than usual, drained. When she saw us she brightened and offered me her pudding. She was always trying to feed us. The first words you'd hear upon entering her house were usually, "Are you hungry? I can make you something." And over time I learned that no matter what my response I'd end up at the table with a full meal in front of me. She wasn't about to stop that now, hospital bed or no hospital bed.

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