Love is a Lesson Learned

Tuesday, January 17, 2011
Tell us about your first teacher who was important to you.

Although there were a few teachers in my schooling that really affected me, I think my first real teacher was my grandmother.  She was a hell of a woman.  So much so that it is almost blaspheme even speaking of her using fowl language.  I think that she would be honored that I am categorizing her as a teacher in my life.  She was many things, mostly a wife, mother, grandmother and a house wife but she was also so much more – so inspirational.  She taught me so much and is still in death.  She really had a true teacher spirit.  She probably would have been immensely happy to have been a teacher, but she wasn’t able to even finish high school because she ended up being the one to stay home to take care of her dying mother.  Her husband and her children, she said, was her vocation.  That was an understatement. 

My grandmother’s teaching spirit came through in mostly everything that she did.  She really put her heart into what she did.  She was a loving and devoted wife, an amazing mother to 9 kids, and a grandmother to all of us (there are tons).  I can’t even fathom how she made us all feel so loved?  I can’t understand it, actually.  It still astounds me today.  But that was one of her greatest lessons.  She really was one of the biggest sources of light in my life. She is one of the few people that made me feel good about myself, made me feel special and absolutely made me feel loved.  She taught me how to love.  

When she died I knew that I was losing an incredible source of energy and love.  I knew that I would never be able to tap into that like I did when she was alive, and it was horrible.  It wasn’t like I visited my grandmother everyday or anything (which is ridiculous considering the distance) but I did visit her periodically and see her a lot during my life.  Her influence to the time actually spent with me ratio is astounding.  I used to call her "Mommy-Grandma" when I was a little girl.  This started because I actually would call her Mommy and then catch and correct myself.  It's just one of those things, but I think it is one of those "you're Freudian slip is showing" things.  It speaks volumes about me.  To this day I will also sometimes slip up and refer to her as "Mom."  I learned after her death from one of my aunts how honored she was that I possibly would have thought of her that way.  I was honored to be able to feel that way; to have her influence as a child.  

She continues to be a huge influence in my life and I think about her almost daily.  I still look to her to guide me.  You would swear that the woman was in my head.  Other than the lesson in love, my grandmother's other gift to me was the lesson of faith.  Faith and love - they sort of go hand in hand, don't they?  Although I was sat by my gram a lot while I was little, I didn't live with her.  I've got other structures in my head making up my perspective.  A lot of other things control my brain, but I think her loving lessons really formed most of the positive framework of my mind and I don’t think I would have been able to survive without that love.