Assignment 8- Mary Huffman- Tears and a probable eulogy

Fears- not being able to protect my family

Annoyances- loud chewing, mouth noises of any kind

Accomplishments- having all A's while belonging to too many clubs

Confusions- AP Physics, misogyny

Sorrows- people I love getting old

Dreams- to make coin then retire early to Colorado

Idiosyncrasies- kind of a control freak

Risks- rarely wearing my retainer

Beloved Possessions, Now and Then- then, stuffed animals; now, self-confidence

Problems- procrastination

First, I'd like you to know that I cry only on rare occasion, but completing that list caused enough emotional turmoil for the tears to flow uncontrollably. My closest friends, my family, they don't know most of the things on that list, but here I am sharing them for an assignment in English class. The reason I'm crying as I write this is found in the fifth territory- sorrows, appropriately. I'm crying about two very old people, one dead and the other presumably still living. My mother was adopted as a baby and didn't know of her biological family until just before her wedding some thirty years later. Her birth mother took on this title as a teenager, impregnated by a man we would never meet. My grandmother- I've never called her that before now- was born in England during World War II to a young British woman named Ivy and a soldier from deep in Louisiana with whom she would spend most of the rest of her life. These two people are some of the most caring, wonderfully happy individuals I've had the pleasure of knowing. My great-grandparents (G.G.'s for short) created for me some of my childhood's most brilliant, vivid memories. Each Christmas when my brother and I were younger, we would visit G.G. Ivy and G.G. Bob's house, play on  their carpeted stairs, draw them pictures, and have afternoon tea with the most buttery cookies we'd ever laid our little hands on. I would converse with my great-grandmother in a British accent that mimicked her own. G.G. Bob would grin with surprise each time I enthusiastically tried a strange food. I always knew they were very old, but I never quite realized what that meant until I lost one of them. We hadn't visited Louisiana, where they lived, for a couple years. When I, around 13 at the time, asked my parents what day we'd be seeing the G.G.'s, my mother told me that G.G. Bob had died a few months prior. I dashed up the stairs and sobbed as I'm doing now. His death still haunts me in a way. I don't feel like I ever got to say goodbye to the man I looked up to more than anyone knew. My fear now is that my relationship with my great-grandmother will end in the same way. The last time I spoke to her was two years ago, when she couldn't remember me because of the dementia. I wanted to cry then, but the grief was too new. It's been catching up with me recently, though. I don't know if G.G. Ivy is still alive, if she can remember the last meal she ate, or if she's forgotten the husband who loved her all those many years. There is so much I wanted to ask her, I wanted to know her story, but I waited too long. Even if I won't be able to tell her in person, I hope her ninety-ninth birthday is even a half of what she deserves.