Today, July 10th, it’s exactly four months since my grandmother passed away.
If our relationship were to be described with one word, it’d be ever-changing. Growing up, my grandmother became my legal guardian after my mom passed away. She was 74 and I was 10.
In a lot of ways we kept each other young. I wasn’t the easiest teenager to be around, which made her have to stay on her toes. She wasn’t the easiest person to get along with, which helped me still be a teenager even when I felt life forced me to grow up faster than most.
I can’t pinpoint when my attitude made the leap from snarky to hyperaware of my grandmother’s age, but it did, and Glamour Gals had a huge part in bridging that gap.
Glamour Gals is an amazing organization that facilitates beauty makeovers in order to help teen girls connect with women living in senior homes. I came across this not for profit when I covered their Glammy Awards for an online magazine. Instantly I fell in love with their mission.
Even though at this point I was already half way through college and with too much on my plate to start my own chapter, I encouraged my high school alma mater to start one of their own. Then I took Glamour Gals’ mission and applied it on a personal level.
My grandmother was not into makeup and wouldn’t paint her nails on her own accord. That being said, every other week, her and I would sit at the corner of her bed and I would paint her nails a soft pink. (The only color she found acceptable.)
The first time we did this, we were still butting heads on anything and everything, but after a couple of mani sessions I started seeing my grandmother as the woman she was and not just as my grandmother, the disciplinarian. I can’t even express how much having those memories of painting my grandmother’s nails means to me now that she’s gone.
Now, anytime I paint my nails a soft pink I’m reminded of her and all the laughs we shared. Seeing a ten-year-old grow into a 21-year-old isn’t the easiest thing in the world, but my grandmother chose to do it. I’ll always be grateful to her for becoming my legal guardian and second mom.
I’ll also always be grateful to Glamour Gals for highlighting how I could take away as much from my relationship with my grandma as she took from my company.
Have you heard of Glamour Gals before?
