“It was just the three of us. And dad was a truck driver so he was gone most of the time. It could be a lot of stress. My mom was almost like a single mother. On my third birthday we moved to a small house outside of Denver. Next door there lived an older couple named Arlene and Bill, and they started talking to me through the fence. My first memory is Arlene handing me strawberries from her garden. It was a wonderful connection. After a few months, I knocked on their door, sat down in their living room, and said: ‘Will you guys be my grandparents?’ It was so silly. They could have laughed it off. But instead they started crying. They printed out an adoption certificate and hung it on their living room wall. That certificate remained until I left for college. They became so important to me. Their house was a refuge. Bill was the kind of grandfather that always smelled like oil. He taught me to drive everything. He was always fixing stuff. But he’d stop anything to sit down with me and have a glass of tea. Arlene was the type of grandmother that loved crafts, which was perfect for a kid. We were always putting tiny sequins on things. Both of them supported me in all my dreams. Through all my phases. They encouraged me to apply for college, even though I didn’t have the money to go. And when I got accepted, they presented me with a fund. They told me they’d been putting away money since the day I adopted them. Since I’ve become an adult, I’ve learned more about my grandparents. They both grew up poor. Arlene struggled with alcoholism when she was young, and that’s why they never had children. Their lives weren’t as perfect as they seemed through the fence. My grandmother passed away in 2013. It was two days before our adoption anniversary. My grandfather gave her eulogy. And at the end, he said: ‘Arlene leaves behind her husband Bill. And the greatest joy of her life her granddaughter Katie.’”
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