This is not a good photo at all,but I also took a picture of a picture from my yearbook when they celebrated Grandparents' Day at my school when I was little.
My grandfather ,Juan Gonzalez ,(shown in the photo above)was the first grandparent to die (from the grandparents that I actually met) and it really affected me a lot for several reasons. I was close to my grandpa. He was one of the sweetest people that you could ever meet. If a neighbor or family member had trouble with bills or food ,he would write them a check and help them pay for what they needed. He was drafted into the Korean war before he married Grandma Nelly and he helped his friends that died on the battle field by taking their bodies to a safe place where the bodies were eventually taken back to America and buried. He had a hard childhood where sometimes he would not know if he would have a meal the next day or not. Because of that he chose to always help people and he would always buy people food and things because he NEVER wanted them to spend nights hungry like he did. His death affected me because I had just started 6th grade and I had never had a family member die before that I was so close to. I wanted him to be there at my wedding in the future,but his death was not even close to the time that I would like to get married and I am only a 12th grader anyway,so I have to graduate high school and go to college at least before I have a wedding. Grandpa Juan Gonzalez died on the morning of Monday,November 20th,2006. To this day,I still miss him and I wish that he was still here and I wish that he could have at least seen me graduate high school,but I know that he is in a better place.
The next grandparent that died was Grandma Eunice Carter Wallace. She has a huge family because she had 8 children total; 2 girls and 6 boys. In order their names are Frances,David,Johnathan,Jewel,Wade,George,Mark,and my father Everett. She is related to Cherokee Indians and she was a nurse in Georgia at the KenneStone Hospital for over 30 years. Nurses' jobs are usually harder than a doctor's job;as in, they sometimes work harder than doctors. Her birthday was December 21st and the funny thing is that my birthday is December 21st also (different years of course). She always cared about everyone in her family and she always wanted to have big reunions with the whole entire family. She had a hard life because not only having to deal with the death of her husband ,she had to deal with the death of some of her children and even a 5-year-old grand-child. The first child of hers that died was her oldest daughter,Frances, the aunt that I never met along with the cousin I never got to meet. Frances lived in a brick house with her 3 children and a husband that smoked. One day her husband fell asleep in the living room and he accidentally forgot to put the cigarette in the ash tray,so it was still burning. Soon the whole house was in flames and Frances was in her bedroom trying to push her 2 daughters out of a window that she had in the bedroom. Luckily her son was fishing with his grandfather so he was NOwhere near the fire. Frances was able to successfully push her oldest daughter outside to safety,but it was too late for her youngest daughter and herself. The flames had consumed the inside of the brick house and Frances ,her 5-year-old daughter ,and her husband were almost completely burned inside of the house. It was all over the news in Georgia and all over America. Who knows? Maybe even all over the world. No one in my family will ever forget when a few weeks before that happened when Frances' 5-year-old daughter put her arms up in the air and said,"Someday,I'm going to be an angel!" Now we know why she said that. Now whenever I visit that same site in Georgia,there is NO sign of that brick house. There are only trees where the house once stood. No one is allowed to build a house or anything on that same place in fear that something tragic might happen again and to always remember what happened there.
Grandma Wallace lived through many things in her life,but she never stopped caring about her family. She died on July 2nd,2011. It is hard for me to believe that that was only last year when Grandma Wallace died. It feels unreal. I feel as though she is still here and I feel like when I visit Georgia that I am going to see her ,but I won't. I will always miss my Grandma Wallace,but I will always remember her on my birthday,December 21st,because that is her birthday also. :)
Last ,but definitely not least is the fact that I only have ONE grandparent who is alive and she lives in the same house that I live in. Her name is Grandma Nelly Gonzalez. She has always lived in the same house that I have lived in since the day I was born and now more than ever because she has been a widow for about five years. She is one of the best grandmothers that you could ever ask for. She cooks,cleans,plants,sows,makes clothes, pillows, blankets,washes dishes,creates arts & crafts out of anything recycled,types on a typewriter, and she along with my mother has taught me Spanish my whole life while I teach the both of them English. She was even a secretary when my mom and my mom's 2 brothers were in school .She does practically everything. She is NOT even scared of killing things like snakes,insects,spiders,and EVEN Cockroaches,which I hate and I definitely do NOT want to touch!! I honestly do not know what I would have done or how I would have survived without her. I love all of my grandparents,but now that I only have one ,I have to take care of her the most and I hope that she can go to my wedding or at least see me graduate high school.
I Love You,Abuela!!!! <3
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