Love – Just Do It

 

 

I learned about love from my grandmother.  To most people, she was a very hard person; she never said things in a soft way and she always got her point across, no matter what.  I don’t remember many times hearing her say “I love you” but I do remember the things she did that conveyed the sentiment of love.

 

As a little girl, I loved everything strawberry – the fruit, the dessert, the jam, the doll, if it had strawberry in it, I wanted it.  During one visit to my grandmother’s home when I was five or six, she told me to go to the back room.  I knew not to question her because as I said, she was a hard person and I didn’t want her to yell at me.  When I entered the room, I saw that a bowl covered with a napkin was sitting on a table.  My grandma came in right behind me and removed the napkin from the bowl.  To my surprise and delight sat a mound of fresh, ripe strawberries.  She sat me in a chair next to the table and placed the bowl in my lap. I couldn’t believe my eyes!  “I can eat ‘em?” I asked her. “Yes,” she replied, “Eat as many as you want.  Come back to the living room when you’re done.”  It was at that moment that I learned that love is best felt when it is in action.

 

My grandmother often told a story from her life that also taught me about love.  She left her parents’ home at age 16 and began supporting herself without much of an education.  After eventually getting married and starting a family, she had to find stable work.  It being the 1940s, her being black and uneducated, the only work she could find was cleaning homes and doing laundry for white families. After several years of this physically taxing work, her employer told her to start bringing her daughters so they could learn how to clean houses too.  My grandmother looked the woman in the eye and told her “I do this work so my children won’t ever have to.  
They will never clean anybody’s house but their own.”  It took a lot of guts for a black woman to speak that way to a white woman at the time but my grandmother’s message, and legacy to her family, was clear.  

 

As I grew up, my relationship with my grandmother became the most important thing in my life.  Wherever she went, I went; whatever she liked, I liked.  And again, I really don’t recall her saying “I love you” to me too much, but it was apparent to everyone that I was her favorite person and she was mine. When it came time for my senior year of high school, my family realized that I was going to college – the first one.  I went on to earn my bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering and a master’s degree, too, but I always remember how my grandmother’s acts of love laid the foundation for me to achieve a better life.  I am grateful for the way she loved me – through actions.  And today I believe love is best shown and felt by what a person does, in big ways and in small ways. Although it may take time, the effect of an action-based and sincere love can be felt in generations to come.