As I sat there, in the back of my grandparents’ English class, the same biweekly ESL class that they have attended for over a decade, I couldn’t help but smile. Shying away from her usual routine of worksheets and parts of speech, Sandra, their faithful and time-tested teacher, recently embarked upon a new course, asking each of her devoted students to dedicate half of a class period to a presentation their country and city of origin.
There they were, all sitting with their specific group of friends like high school never ended – learning. But on this day, and in that room, they weren’t learning about greetings or grammar – they were learning about each other. Setting aside the truly astounding fact that they still want to be in school after the lives that each of them has lived, I couldn’t help but enjoy the fact that I was surrounded by some of the most amazing people alive today. Here they sat, listening intently and discussing the peculiar similarities between countries like Belorussia and Iran, writing down new words they heard along the way, growing together and moving ever-forward at an age of undeniable slowdown. To watch them interact and bridge gaps which they could not have dreamed about in their home countries was an experience I won’t soon forget.
As I’ve grown up, my grandparents have been an undeniable force in my life, one of guidance and ideal, trust and unwavering support. Rare is the day that passes and I don’t speak to them, if only for minute. But those days without those talks do sneak by with the emptiest of spirits, only to be followed by the darkness of unquestionable regret.
For these are the people who raised our parents, who raised us, who molded the very dispositions of those that I hold so dear in my life. But they are not merely parents – they are children, and friends, and siblings, and lawyers, and engineers, and doctors, and survivors. They are the last links to a past that seems to be fading away by the hour, never pausing or stopping to breathe the smallest breath.
After their almost 90 years, and more than 60 years together, no better founts exist for requisite lessons about philosophy, life, love, and everything else that might arise along the way. But lessons or not, with or without the experiences from dark days of the old world and the old life, I declare now with the full force of meaning that my grandparents are some of the most amazing people that I will ever meet. If in the end I’m even slightly like them, or achieve even a small portion of what they have, that will be a life worth living.