A Love Bigger than Texas by Devon

A Love Bigger than Texas by Devon - October 2018 Scholarship Essay

My mother claims that people always need a bucket. I would argue that people always need a box.
~
I didn’t feel the loss of my grandparents when I was younger as much as I do now, despite the shortened distance; not as much as my grandparents did, hours, a continent, and an ocean away from me and my parents during our stint in England. I simply adopted the grandparents of my friend group, happily referring to them by their “grandma” names before they could ask. Besides, my godparents were more than enough for me; Miss Chrissie’s stories were just as good as the far-off Nan who lived in the exotic land of “Texas” and read me books through the phone.
Nan, however, would not sit idle and allow her to leave my memory. She insisted I remember her, making jingles about her and “Daddydad” whenever I visited them at least once a year. Daddydad and Nan in the Big. Red. Van. still enters my mind automatically whenever I see the spot in their garage where the Big Red Van once was. The red suburban was as entrenched in my mind as Daddydad and Nan. My other grandparents I knew because of our yearly travels to the United States, but I didn’t know them like I knew Nan and Daddydad because Nan further enforced her memory through “Texas boxes.”
The Texas Box was nearly sacred, and I looked forward to them all. In the Texas Box there would be assorted foods, vitamins that were only in America (VeggieBuddies), stuffed animals, chili, Fritos, and a book. There was always a book, usually one that she read to me and that I asked her to send soon after. (The longest running book before I finally begged Nan to send it was Rumble in the Jungle; I memorized it before it joined its predecessors and was sent it in the Box.)
Now, Nan is my best friend. We stay up late and watch Hallmark movies together. I suggest happy, funny books I think she’ll love. We work on crosswords and “WordyGurdy’s” together, and she never ceases to amaze me with her boundless knowledge of trivia. We encourage each other’s sweet tooth, sneaking Donette’s with breakfast, smiling conspiratorially. The gifts she blesses me with are only the penguin on the tip of the ice berg; as much as I appreciate them and laugh at their silliness at times, the mass of our friendship goes beyond what can be boxed.
For my sixteenth-birthday-three-months-late, to my surprise, I received my first Texas box in years.
At a fancy dinner party hosted by my grandparents’ close friends, we celebrated my sixteenth birthday in style, gorging ourselves on Texan foods and being entertained by the interesting and varied guests—from the singer who serenaded us as we entered the establishment to the artist of a portrait I had unwittingly posed for the summer before.
Nan stood up and with a dramatic flair my mother inherited and I aspire to have, told us a story (one of her innumerable specialties). She told the less informed guests at the table about the longstanding tradition of Texas Boxes, reiterating the separate joys we experienced—her the giving, me the receiving. And lo and behold, she brought out a massive wooden crate with metal clasps and decorated with a similarly large Texas flag on the top. I couldn’t help but laugh as she heaved open the heavy lid and began to pull books and flannel nightgowns, pajama pants and stuffed animals out of the bottomless Box. Nostalgia coloured me delighted more than the gifts.
Now, that box hides under my bed, filled with the journals that I have filled with my story ideas, my prayers, to-do lists, ramblings, rants, amateur drawings, even unfinished chapter books—a mix between stereotypical fourth grade diaries and fantasy tales filled with whimsical heroines and unexpected villains.
So, for me, out-of-the-box has multiple meanings: my grandmother’s ironclad determination to be remembered, my own attempts at leaving a legacy, a parcel of unopened opportunities…
Momma may think that a bucket is the most useful thing to have in a crisis, but for living life in general? I don’t think anything can quite beat a box—especially if it’s filled with love bigger than even Texas.