Fourth Grade

I remember my teacher.
I remember my friends.
I remember that I never won the Hershey chocolate bar given weekly for the two cleanest desks.
I remember being the first class in the underground building at West elementary in Weatherford.
I remember being told my Grandma had leukemia.

Grandma was diagnosed with leukemia and I was the only child left at home. I learned first hand exactly what it meant to be a caregiver, of course that wasn't the word that was used.

Fourth grade was the beginning of the end of my childhood, not just because I was growing older but because on hindsight a stores of events began that would alter who I would become for the rest of my life.  A simple diagnosis, my mom who was an RN (who had left her profession when I was born to be a stay at home wife and mom), her siblings busy in their own lives and Mom being drawn to helping her parents.

 We lived approximately am hour and a half from my grandparents.  Grandma with leukemia and Grandpa with heart problems meant Mom began making more frequent trips to help them.  My Dad accepted a job in El Reno, an hour away from home.  Along

with that new job came him staying in a a motel Monday-Friday for almost a year.  When Mom was home, she and I would go over on Wednesday nights and spend the night, leaving early on Thursday for me to get to school.   This was our life until  we finally found a house and moved.

What does that mean to a girl whose Mom is caring for grandparents in one town, Dad is in a motel for work in another town and my school is in yet another town?  Fortunately my

brother who is ten years older than me was married.  His wife was kind and willing to take me in when my parents were gone.  She'd pack my lunch, take me to school and we'd make cookies for or just go see my brother who was working in the oilfield.

Fourth grade. Fourth grade defined me.   Who knew?