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"I
am not one to visit the grave, but looking at the people I love fills me with peace and love and I just have to smile."
-- Robin
Sarah
Haynes
May 30, 2005
English,
3rd period
Meaning
of sacrifice
A
Woman I Wish I had Known
My grandmother was born in 1930 in Bonneville, Alberta. By the age of 13, she dropped out of school to help take care of her father; so her mother could work out side the
house. Her father was dying from colon cancer and her job in the family was to take care of him and his personal needs. A
few years passed before she moved out and began working at a laundry mat, folding and washing clothes.
She was a single mother to three daughters, my mother, Robin,
and my two aunts, Anita and Bonnie. She was separated from my grandfather for many years, after finding out that he was having
an affair. He left California and went away with the woman he was with and her three children, taking my mother, and my two aunts with them. My grandmother
spent a year looking for them before she found them. After finding the children my grandmother had a hard time finding work
in California, so they moved to Seattle, Washington. There, she was closer to her family
that lived in Vancouver,
Canada.
She worked at a laundry mat for twenty-eight hard years up at 4:30 in the morning to getting home at 4:30 at night. Before going to bed at night, she would curl her
hair and try to look her best everyday for work. One morning my mother was late for school, and needed a late slip. She went
to the laundry mat and saw her mother working with her hair; that she had worked so hard on, straight and dripping with sweat.
My mother was only in second grade at the time, but she realized then how much her mom gave up for her and her sisters. I
asked her how seeing her mom like that affected her. With tears she responded, “When she would come home from work each
day, I thought that her hair became straight toward the end of the day, but when I saw her, I realized that it didn’t
last past nine in the morning. When I saw all the steam around her, I saw firsthand how hard she worked for us. She never
really talked about her work to us”. She did mention that she became the fastest towel folder, folding over 10,000 towels
a day.” She told my mother, “No matter what you do in life, do it to the best of your ability.” My grandfather
never sent any money or supported his family in any way. Not really knowing their father, other than the fact that he was
never there, my mother and aunts would sometimes make comments about him. My Grandmother never spoke poorly about him, and
whenever the kids said anything bad about him, she would say, “Don’t talk like that, he’s your father”.
Since they did not have a car, they had to walk everywhere.
My grandmother would walk with them to the beach, which was about 50 blocks. Going there, my grandmother knew that the children
would gripe about how tired they were, and how it was such a long walk, and yet she did it anyway. They would also want to
go to the zoo or the lake, and she tried her best to make it happen. My grandmother never bought anything for herself. She
would mend her torn nylons and bras. She gave the kids as much as she could. My mom remembers seeing her mother’s closet
and seeing that she had barely anything. When there was a family gathering in Canada and all the girls were out of the house,
they told her to buy a new dress. Then my mother realized that instead of her mother buying herself some new things, since
she lived alone, she gave her money to her church and missionaries around the world.
On November 8, 1979, my grandmother died from cancer. At her funeral, Mom remembers
people coming up to her and telling her how much my grandmother helped them saying, “Hello my name is so and so, your
mother helped me with my groceries, or helped me clean my house.” Basically whatever was needed to be done, my grandmother
would help out. These were people that my mother did not even know. She gave up everything for her three daughters and others
in her community. She always thought of others before herself. She was my grandmother. . I wish I could have known her. She
died at age forty-nine. Thirty-four years before I was even born. I never had
the chance.
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