The stereotypical Grandma is a sweet old lady, who always carries a plate of freshly baked cookies with her, who lives just across the river and through the woods. As a child, my grandmother seemed very similar to this interpretation of the fairy tale, but as I grew up I realized that she played a much bigger role in my life than storybooks, and anyone else, could have predicted. When I was thirteen, my mother kicked me out of the house. My grandmother welcomed me kindly, as my father did not have the means to take care of me. Three years later, my mother passed away. There has probably never been a more devastating event in my life. I may have only seen her occasionally, but “never” was a completely new idea. It was always upsetting to never see her at my plays or concerts, but it was completely different to think that on graduation night I would have the same problem. That there would be no mother of the bride at my wedding. That when I had a child, there would be no one to teach me how to care for a human being. That one day I would receive a phone call announcing her death and when I went to look inside the coffin I wouldn't even recognize the woman inside. I wrote two things about my mother that sum us up very well. One was called You're Perfect... and I Love You. It was a short story about myself grappling with the idea that if I could be the best, my mother would still love me. It won first prize in a writing contest, and I couldn't hold back the tears as I read the three pages of my life in front of a room of people I didn't know. Somewhere in that story there are lines expressing the pain of my mother's absence at every school function, and somewhere in that moment it is ironic that she too was not in that audience. The other... half of the paper... ..hey. At seventy-three years old, he has just learned to manage his emotions trapped in these problems, and when he looks at me, he is able to recognize where I am and understands. There is nothing more important in the world than having someone who understands. The things he did for me changed my life forever, even though today I'm just starting to understand them. It stopped me from having to open the kitchen cabinets to empty the shelves and allowed me to buy new school supplies every year. She gave me the opportunity to get less angry and stood by me as I learned to understand myself. He was at every single play, band concert, and clapped in the stands when my name was announced at graduation. She has become much more than a grandmother to me; she really turned into everything I really needed: a lawyer, a guardian angel, a mother.