I once tried to write an essay about one of my grandmothers. A couple of thousand words into the assignment I realized the difficulty of writing briefly about her. This surprised me, since I knew this grandmother only from occasional visits to her farm until I was ten years old. Then we moved far away. Nevertheless, the image of her remains distinct. She was small but strong, coming from years of hard work alongside my grandfather on a simple, subsistence farm.
I returned last summer to their farmhouse. Outwardly not much had changed, though it is clear that the people who reside there live quite differently than my grandparents. The old gray barn is gone, along with the farm animals. The corn and wheat fields remain.
Though many years have passed, I have come to know, to understand, my grandmother and my grandfather better since that time. The years have brought growth beyond what a ten-year-old could understand or articulate. I see my grandparents through their children and through my cousins. My grandparents are more real, not less, as the years go by.
