One of my classmates gave an fantastic speech last week about how thankful she was for her grandparents. She provided three main reasons on why she was thankful for her grandparents, and it was because of their hospitality, their unconditional love and their wisdom. As I was sitting in class that day listening to my classmate's speech, I began thinking about my own grandmother and the appreciation that I have for her.
My grandmother is 82 and a real-life superhero. Even in old age, she still has amazing health. She takes walks around her neighborhood regularly and even invites her sister over to come walk with her. Even retirement couldn't slow her down. She worked until she was 70 and spent a majority of her life cleaning at a Quality Inn near Downtown New Orleans. And even though the Quality Inn was a few miles away from her house in Mid-City, she still managed to make that walk to work with hardly any complaints.
The people that know my grandmother know that she loves cooking up a storm. Every time I come over to her house, she's always cooking something. Whether it's beans, greens, tomatoes or potatoes, if you name it, then she will cook it. There are times where she cooks up a meal to feed an entire army, and I don't really know the reason why she does that. What I really love about my grandmother is that she will never ever hesitate to make a good plate of red beans and rice. Her beans are always full of the right flavors and spices, and it's very hard to resist asking for a second plate.
But the one thing that really amazes me about my grandmother is her sharp memory. My mom constantly jokes that my grandmother remembers events from 1912, but that's just how great her memory is. She never forgot her first trip to Florida, which took place last holiday season. She still smiles when she thinks about all the times my then-11-year-old sister would rock me to sleep as a baby. She even keeps graduation pictures of her relatives and displays them all across her house. Some of the pictures are as recent as this year, while the other pictures date all the way back into the '70s.
At the end of the day, my grandmother is an amazing woman of God, and I'm just so blessed that she's in my life.
