My grandmother raised me.
I don’t remember the accident. Just fragments. My mother’s laughter. My father’s clock. And a song playing softly on the radio.
After that, it was just my grandmother and me.
She was 52 when she took me in. She was already working full-time as a cook in my school cafeteria and living in a house so old it creaked with the slightest breeze.
My mother’s laughter.
There was no plan B. It was just the two of us and a world that wouldn’t stop.
She made sure it worked.
Her name was Lorraine, and at school they called her Miss Lorraine.
She was 70 and still arrived at work before dawn, her fine gray hair pinned back.
And she made sure it worked.
Every morning, even though she spent the day cooking for other people’s children, she packed my lunch and left me a note. It was always something sweet, like, “You’re my favorite miracle.”
We were poor, but she never acted like we lacked anything.
“You’re my favorite miracle.”
When the heat stopped working one winter, she filled the living room with candles and blankets and called it spa night.
“I don’t need to be rich,” she told me one day when I asked if she regretted not going back to school. “I just want you to be happy.”
And that’s what I did until high school complicated things.
“I just want you to feel good.”
It started in freshman year.
People used to walk past me in the hallway and mutter things like, “Better not mess with her, her grandma might spit in our soup.”
Some people make fun of my grandma’s accent.
The first year began…
I remember one day when Brittany, who had cried at my eighth birthday party because she hadn’t won musical chairs, asked in front of everyone, “Does your grandma always put underwear in your lunchbox?”
Everyone laughed. I didn’t.
At school, the kids made fun of her apron, imitated her, and called her “stupid cook.” Nothing serious enough to punish her, but enough to hurt her.
Everyone laughed. I didn’t.
The teachers could hear it. But no one said anything.
Maybe they thought I was being harsh, or that it wasn’t a big deal. But to me, every comment was like a slap in the face to the only person who gave me a reason to get up in the morning.
I was trying to protect her. She already had arthritis and often came home with back pain. I didn’t want to cause her any more trouble.
