With her wizened hand gracefully motioning to come close: I step right next to her chair. As I hunch over to see what she has for me in her bag, the only thought in my mind is ‘What is it?! What is it?! What is it?!?!’ A small and simple, yet elegant 14 karat gold chain was slowly being lifted from its small pink pouch. Then I see two gold ball pendants and in the middle of the balls, hung a light green, heart shaped jade. Happy sweet 16 to me!

Terry Tong. Well, now it’s Terry Wallrabenstein because she married my grandpa. Weird right? She went from a four-lettered name to a fourteen-lettered one. She was adopted. Her adoptive parents told her she was full Chinese, though it was obvious that she wasn’t. Because she was brought up with Chinese belief, Jade was the most valued gem passed through her family.

Her grandmother gave her the same necklace that I had been given on my 16th birthday. Now to be honest, I didn’t see what the big deal was in getting a necklace from my grandma on my birthday at first. But when she explained how important it was to her and her family, I actually understood where she was coming from, especially because this necklace from her adoptive mom’s mother made her feel like she was part of a real family.

Between my fingers, I stroke my smooth jade pendant. And I’m back to the time I made pesto with my grandma. We walked to the backyard to pick a handful Thai basil leaves that she had planted a few years back. As she pulls the leaf off of its stem, the sweet aroma of pesto fills my nostrils. Then she turns around and looks at me, waves the leaves in my face to a point that it almost touches the tip of my nose, and laughs. “Come on miss Lacie, put the leaves in the bowl!” she demands in a sassy, but friendly way as her eyes shift to the small bowl in my hand. After we had collected enough, we walk back into the kitchen where she had already taken out olive oil, a few cloves of garlic and some pine nuts. She sorts out the leaves; she likes the bigger ones. We throw all of our ingredients into the grinder and then bam! We got some delicious homemade pesto just for the two of us.

My mind shifts back to reality, but I pull at the necklace around my neck and I’m back to more fun time with “Gramma”. I’d always go over to her house every weekend so she could teach me how to make feather leis. Funny story, I was eating graham crackers while she was telling me something along the lines of “Don’t put the needle through that hole, it’s the other one! No! Not that one Lacie! The other one! No! Ugh! Helpless I tell you.” I couldn’t help but laugh so hard that all of the partially soggy, little crumbs and pieces of the cracker flew out of my mouth and landed on her lap, her lei, my lap, and my lei. She was mad. She was a grandma kind of mad, where I knew she was mad, but she laughed because she’s my grandma! She stood up from her chair, holding the bottom of her shirt up so that the crumbs didn’t fall on the ground and walked to the trash can as I followed behind her. Through the laughter and anger, I didn’t even notice that I had pricked my finger with the needle, but then again, I always prick my finger, so it was common for me to be oblivious to the painless poke. After we cleaned up, we sat back down and this time, with less talking, I focused more on weaving the needle and string through the correct holes. I was hungry again. I saw my crackers and I said “Graham cram.” I think it startled her a little. But she thought I said ‘gram-gram’. Now, I call her “Gramma, Gram-Gram, Graham Cracker”. She came around. Now she even calls herself that!

"What a world!" She always says. And what a world it is. Paitence, focus, and a natural world are just a few of the many aspects of my life she has influenced. Opening my eyes to such a real world full of relationships between patience and nature is really something that I learned from her. To obtain a delightful world, one must have patience and focus to create something beautiful, just like the basil. To create a plant, one had to have patience to let the plant grow. Not only does this lesson in life apply to just plants; it applies to many situations in our natural world. Patience and natural ways are a just a few steps on the path way to something beautiful. "What a time to alive, Lace." -Gramma