Dear Grandma...

My first memory of Grandma was when I was about 5 years old. We were at the beach for Easter, and she had hidden plastic eggs in the backyard filled with $1 in change each. Grandma really had the grandmothering job down pat. Sam had his friend Patrick visiting, and I was so proud to have such a cool grandmother. Of course, we had just entered the “Arcading” phase of our visits to the beach, so I know that Skeeball came out of the weekend with more money than I did, but after a couple of years of tickets, I think that I finally got that stuffed monkey, so everybody came out on top.

Grandma and Paw Paw’s house defines my childhood more than any other place, and I am sure that this is true for a lot of people. Easters with Bunny-shaped cakes, Summers digging holes in the sand, Thanksgivings making chocolate balls and decorating the tree on the porch. Their house is always stacked with the greatest food. While Paw Paw definitely is in charge of the cooking, Grandma was definitely the one to go to if you wanted a snack. (When we were little it was Grandma Utz’s potato chips, now it is Cheez Curls.) I mean, you can’t beat ice cream in both refrigerators. There were always people stopping by to say hello too- of all ages. I think that it is safe to say that the Ryans are an institution in Bethany Beach.

Of all of the memories I have though, I can only remember seeing Grandma actually at the beach once. And she wasn’t even on the sand. It was about 4 o’clock in the afternoon and we were about to come in for the day, and I saw her standing at the top of the boardwalk, watching the waves. When I was little, I didn’t think about it much, because she was always there sitting in her chair reading or taking one of her classic snoozes when we came back for lunch, ready to make grilled cheese sandwiches or get barbeque from the Fire Department. But now, as I look back, I realize that it was the house itself that was Grandma’s domain. Because while all of us made memories in that house, it held memories too. And even though I never saw Grandma touch the sand, there is overwhelming proof that she did. The glass coffee table filled with sand and sea creatures, the glass whale filled with sea glass- these things served as a window to a Grandma that I never knew. Because, though as a child I never thought about it, Grandma was on the tail end of her life when I met her. As a 91-year old woman, her grandchildren didn’t even get to know her until she was in her 60’s. So much of her life we only know through pictures, knick-knacks on a shelf, or the occasional Japanese words she loved to use at sushi restaurants. So while I didn’t get to see her travel the world, raise her children, walk on the beach, or even smoke a cigarette, the evidence of her life was always around her. And her grandchildren and life in this house in Sussex Shores was the final chapter. I was a part of the end of her life and she was a part of the beginning of mine.

So we are here not only to say goodbye to our grandmother, mother, wife and friend, but also to take stock in our own lives and what Grandma has left behind. She has touched all of us and helped to make us who we are. The Tao Te Ching says, “After finishing the work, withdraw. Though you lose the body, you do not die. This is the Way of Heaven”. I believe that Grandma has finished her work in this life, and I hope that she enters the next in peace and with love. We each carry on a part of her work with us as we move on into the next chapter of our own lives. When I look in the mirror, I see my mother’s strength, and when I look at my mother, I see Grandma’s appreciation of beauty, among other things. Everything I am and I will be I owe to my family, so as we say goodbye to Grandma, I can only hope that I can take what she has given me and make her proud. I love you Grandma, and I will miss you.

The Simple Life

Since being here, I have always appreciated how quickly one’s needs are simplified to the basics. Food and water. If anyone has been paying attention, you know that I have the water situation under control. And if anyone has seen a picture of me lately, you know that the food situation is a bit out of control. So, we have the two most important things covered. So, what comes next? Once I know that I am not going to starve or die of dehydration, I start coming up with ways to make life just a little bit easier. Install an indoor bathing area, cement the front porch, fix my bike, build a sink, etc. The continuation of this process of making things easier for ourselves from a micro to a macroeconomic level is the root of human development. Without running water, you cannot run a washing machine inside your house. Without permanent electricity, an hour dryer cycle is not worth the investment in a real dryer. Thus, these simple things turn an uninvolved couple of hours at night into an all day event, often two days if it is cloudy and the electricity goes out. However, no one in my community is starving or dying of thirst, and on the most basic level, they are fairly comfortable. So why are they less developed? Because there just isn’t enough time in the day to move forward. You’re your day is occupied with the basic duties of maintaining life at the same level. Only once those duties are accomplished can a body set to work on rising above. Families take their children out of school every day in order to help with these duties. Eight-year-olds picking bananas, herding cattle, carrying water from the river on horseback, cooking, cleaning, working in the family store. While we admonish these families for their exploitation of child labor, really, what is the other option? Given the opportunity, of course mothers would rather have their children in school, but sometimes there are just not enough hours in the day. And in their eyes, water comes before reading. I don’t want to be the one to argue their logic either. However, without education, these families are just treading water to stay afloat. And without the knowledge of how to rise from this base level, Dominicans cannot modernize their lives to the extent necessary to find those extra few hours of free time to go to school to get this knowledge. Vicious circle. So really, that is my greatest gift to my community. All of my time is free. So I do all of the things that Dominicans don’t have time to do. I find ways to get them more money for their cacao, I teach English, I play with their kids, and most recently, I teach them how to read.

Joel is my neighbor. He is 13, is in the 4^th grade for the 3^rd time, and he cannot read. They teach reading here in 2^nd and 3^rd grade, but somehow he missed the boat. One of the greatest harms a teacher can do to a student is to pass him before he is ready. Because they don’t teach reading in 4^th grade, and the teacher will not pass him unless he knows how to read. I will grant you, Joel is not a great student, and at this point in his life he would much rather work as a motorcycle errand boy than go to school, but that is because he is fed up with being in the 4^th grade, and there is no one to help him. He lives with his grandparents because his mother moved to a city to work. He hasn’t seen her in about two years. About the same time he was supposed to learn how to read. Hmm. Anyway, no one has time for him. Until I moved in next door. And I have all the time in the world. For one hour the last three days he and I have sat in my room looking at words in “El Arbol Generoso” (The Giving Tree) and learning the alphabet. And what do you know? He is pretty smart. His teacher has already told him that if he keeps it up he will pass the 5^th grade. And that was only 3 days. There are millions of kids who fall through the cracks in overcrowded, underfunded school systems, and I am just one person, so I don’t think that there is much that I can do about those numbers. But Joel is one person that I can do something about. And if he learns to read, maybe he will look beyond the motorcycle and the shoe shining in the park. So this week I found another reason that I am supposed to be here. To show Joel that the world is bigger than he thought.