Sarah Yallalee Shafer’s Memory

My mom has been telling me for years that Grandmommy is a very strong woman. I have no doubt — anytime we saw her, she looked like she had every right to complain about every ache and pain, but she never did. She just smiled.
The weekend Grandmommy passed, I went to a wild ani-mal park and allowed myself to be repeatedly bitten by an ostrich. Oh yeah, it hurt. But I thought, ―I bet that’s something Grandmommy would do.. Or at least some-thing similar to all the brave things Grandmommy has experienced — on purpose or not.
If I could be half as strong as Grandmommy, I think I’d be a whole person. I have al-ways admired her for her smile. I’d see it fade to ―normal face- when she thought no one was looking, but then bam! She’d be smiling again. She had more optimism than I could ever imagine. She never complained about aches and pains and the world being unfair… she only wanted to know what the rest of us were up to. She was truly selfless. Though I wish I knew her better, she will always be an inspiration to me.
— Sarah Yallalee Shafer