Biography: My Mentor

My Mentor, Personal Photo

One of my grandmother's name was Mary, and my other grandmother's name is Sharon. Mix it all together, and you get my name: Shary. I am named after one of the biggest mentors of my life. Unfortunately, I didn't have much time with my grandmother Mary, as she died before even some of my earliest memory. Growing up, however, I have grown up super close with Sharon-- she's just "Granny" to me. 
After raising my mother into a beautiful woman, she dedicated her life to serving others. Even though she worked her whole life, retirement was not an option in her eyes. Her goal was instead to work harder to improve humanity and other's state of lives and subsequent futures. She worked as a volunteer for the Gladney Center for Adoptions in Fort Worth, Texas. We always joke because in my childhood photos, there is always a different random baby in my grandmother’s arms. Over the course of 15 years, she took over 100 babies each in different periods to take care of them before they successfully made it through the adoption process. To granny, she has unique stories for each baby she cared for, some journeys with her lasting 2 weeks and others lasting 1 year! She sacrificed her own money, time, love, and LOTS of sleep to give these infants proper nurturing and love in which they would lack otherwise placed into the foster care system. Not to mention, caring for newborn babies took a tremendous physical toll on her body. It was not easy for her to take on the natural aging pains along with carrying baby carriers everywhere she went in public. 
After much convincing, Granny decided it was time to properly take care of herself as she entered her eighth decade of life. So here we were last year ready to take on a new stage of life when we were hit with the ovarian diagnosis— one of the worst days of my life. She fought through the treatment, and she is now in remission. Granny is my inspiration. 

Author’s note:
Writing this story was a very emotional process for me. I found it is sometimes a much heavier processto write about the characters in your own life, rather than the characters in a seemingly distant fiction story. I chose to write this from a third person biographical type of style. Additionally, I tried to write the story in a linear fashion with a clear timeline with goals of highlighting the journey of my grandmother and where I fit in the picture of her extraordinary life.

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