I really can’t introduce this piece without waxing poetic about the person it’s written about so I’ll just say the woman it talks about was the greatest of the greats. I’ll let the semi-ok writing speak for itself.� Read on below.
Written after December 2001:
She was a hero. Through and through. A woman I cannot to this day speak about without tearing up about. One that I will never forget.
Her name was Jen. Jenimae Dahl. Grandma Jen. She was an amazing young lady with an amazing history around her. She was an activist before she was a grandma, as my mother puts it. She was a fighter and you could always get a feel of her fighting spirit when you looked into her one eye. She lost one and it was always hilarious when she would tell us warnings about our eyes and how we need to be careful.
Got even funnier when she took the glass eye out and proceeded to clean it. Gotta love grandmas. And I did. Loved her for my twenty years I had her. For me, it was a lesson I would learn from her, about her and through her. She taught me so many things about life and about how it was. And most of the time it was never a “sit down lesson time” deal either. You just learned from her.
She died in December of 2001. I was coming out of the movie theater after having seen Lord of the Rings. I got to my car and my phone rang. I cried for fifteen minutes. It hit hard. Hard.
We traveled to Montana and had the funeral. I read something and it was my goodbye to her. I, for the the life of me, cannot find it. But it was adapted from a earlier draft when she still lived with us. Now, I present that, in her memory further down here. But I need to answer the question. Why was she a hero? Why did she deserve space in this column?
Because through all the time I knew her, she loved. She would never hesitate to reach out and hug and kiss and give and love and just overall give you something to go away with. She would open her house to us and do whatever it took to make it happen. Later in years she became less mobile, but we still came up. And other family members were there to help her. And we knew it was coming sooner or later. We were prepared when she died.
But we also weren’t. It came out of blue, in the middle of a amazing time. And now, as we approach the year anniversary of 9-11-01 and even December of 2001, everything starts to comeback again. All those feelings, all those memories and everything that has led me up to this point.
Tomorrow is another day as they say, but for me, I am hard pressed to forget the woman who made me want to become someone like her that respected, understood and loved you as you were. Her family and her grandson. I will never forget. In memory of my greatest Hero.
The following is something I wrote back in 1998-99. I wrote it from my heart and I still feel the way about her that I did then.
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My one and only Hero
By Aaron DeLay
Michael Jordan, Scotty Pippin, Sammy Sosa, Larry Bird, John Elway. These are all people that at one time in my life, I considered heroes. However, as I grow older, I become mature and more thoughtful. In 7th grade, we were asked to do a research essay. Much like this one, we were to write about out our hero in life. I chose Jesus Christ. However, that has changed too. I have given up on sports heroes, movie stars and other famous people. To me, the only reason that they could be my hero would be because they have tons of money. There are a few exceptions to that rule, but most famous people do not deserve hero status.
I have already written about the perfect person in the world, so now I am forced to reconsider. Just this last year, my grandma, Jenimae Dahl went under the knife and into surgery for 6 hours while doctors operated and worked to get her back to good condition. This was her 16th surgery in her 78 years on this earth. There have been pills, visits to the doctor and much more in those 78 years. That and more make her my hero
I am told that she never complained and that she has always done well with what she was given. In the Depression, she always �made do� and learned to save everything she could so that her kids (six of them) could have a somewhat nice life. This would probably explain my ability to save nearly everything I come in contact with.
She worked hard, along with my grandpa to raise kids and help them out, never giving up. Despite the losing a daughter at a young age, she has never lost her outlook on life. 16 surgeries are nothing to this woman. Her outlook has always been one of happiness and hope. Every time we have travel to Opheim, Montana, we pull up to the Grandma and Grandpa�s House and get ready to go in. This house is small, but sufficient, even for family reunions.
My grandparents have lived in that house for nearly all their lives. When we come in, grandma is always doing something and always at us, smiles, and greets us with a big hello. She always stocks up on the good stuff (pop tarts, candy) before we get there so we can have fun. Recently, though she has go through some tough times with her aging body. She has had a breast removed because of cancer, an eye removed because of complications and heart problems. Yet every time she goes in, her attitude is one that cannot be squashed. On her last surgery, when they came to get her, she was playing cards, which is a trademark of Jen. She protested when they came to get her because she was not finished yet. She told everyone that she would see them when she came out. Indeed she did.
She has always loved me and tells me that quite often, giving me hugs and smooches on the cheek. She reads a lot, because she doesn’t want to miss what is going on. However, in recent months, Alzheimer’s has begun to take a toll. She has called me names of my cousins, uncles and brother. She will forget many times what is going on and will ask questions about people who are not even there. It’s sad to see her slowly decrease in health like this, and it is even worse to see my grandpa to have to deal with it. He has been married to her for so many years it’s amazing. Through it all he has been there. Both of them are my heroes, but when one is needed it is my grandma.
Famous people are heroes to some, while historical figures are to others. I like to think that when you find a hero, they are good at heart, good in soul, good in mind and have qualities no one else has. That is why I picked Jesus Christ my seventh grade year. That is why I picked my grandma Jenimae Dahl my sophomore year. She is strong, courageous and is someone I strive to be more like every day. I love her very much and when she leaves us, I will preserve her memory to the best of my ability. For she is my one and only hero.
