Honoring Grandma’s hands

My Grandma, Rose Krivensky, wasn’t like other grandparents — she and my grandfather were parents.

They are my earliest memories of what parents are and should be.

My Grandma was my hero and still is in many ways.

In Arabic, we call Grandma, “Sitty.” When I was little I was put into foster care, and instead of letting me go to a foster home, my Sitty and Pop-Pop took me in. This was after they raised three kids of their own and after working for 45 plus years until the day before a liver transplant, Sitty decided to take on a baby.

That baby was me.

Sitty is a hero not only to me but to many others. She was a 4’ 10” woman who loved sewing and quilting. When I lost her, it was one of the biggest losses that have ever hit me. As I get older, one of the hardest things I realize is how much she gave up and sacrificed to raise me. Instead of worrying about her own life, she did for me what many people think they would do but in reality might not actually do.

I miss her in the way of losing a parent and not just a grandma that I saw every few weeks. Again, as I get older it also makes me see the differences and understand between what is a good parent and a bad parent. Sitty was a good parent and a selfless caring person.

As a person who wants kids of my own and didn’t grow up with the best mom or dad, parenting scares me; but I think I learned how to be a good one from Sitty.

Grandma Rose was one of the most beautiful, caring, loving and amazing people I have ever known. She loved butterflies and adored all her kids and grandkids. She didn’t have a bad bone in her body. One of my best memories of her was when my grandparents had just moved to this old house in the middle of the country — and as a frail woman that broke easily, I remember that with no help at all that little old lady hanging her own pictures on the walls.

Every weekend I was with her, she was there to protect me. As I said before, I didn’t have the luxury of growing up in a house with good parents, so when Sitty could, she would take me everywhere with her to protect me. It’s the simple things I remember about Sitty. Often she picked me up from school and would take me out for a meal or I would just stay at home with her.

Her death a couple of years ago was really hard on me.

My whole life I only knew Sitty and my Pop-Pop as parents, and both of their deaths were close together. When I lost Sitty, I lost my mom. If you would have told me back then that I would be writing about her for a community newspaper today, I wouldn’t have believed you. I continue to push to do good in my life because of Sitty and how she protected me when my own mother wouldn’t.