My classmates mocked my grandma’s aprons, her voice, and even the lunches she packed for me. But when I stepped up to the podium at graduation, the truth I shared left the whole gym silent.
I’m 18, and I graduated from high school last week.
People keep asking me what’s next, but honestly, I don’t know how to answer.
It doesn’t feel like anything’s started.
If anything, it feels like something ended too soon, and the world forgot to hit “play” again.
Everything still smells like the cafeteria — like warm rolls and cleaning spray.
Sometimes I think I hear her footsteps in the kitchen, even though I know better.
My grandma raised me.
Not part-time. Not through shared custody.
Not “She helped out sometimes.” I mean, she was it.
The whole deal.
She became my mother, my father, and every support beam in my life since childhood, when my parents died in a car crash.
I don’t remember the crash. Just a few flashes from before. My mom’s laugh.
My dad’s watch was ticking on the steering wheel.
And a song was playing low on the radio.
Then it was just my grandma and me.
She was 52 when she took me in. She was already working full-time as a cafeteria cook at my future school and living in a house so old it creaked whenever the wind changed.
There were no backup plans.
Just the two of us and a world that didn’t slow down to help.
And she made it work.
Her name was Lorraine, and people at school called her Miss Lorraine, or just “Lunch Lady,” as if it were some anonymous job title instead of the woman who practically raised half the kids in town.
She was 70 and still came to work before dawn, her thin gray hair tied with a scrunchie she made herself.
Every apron she wore had a different fabric — sometimes sunflowers, sometimes little strawberries. She said they made the kids smile.
Every morning, even though she’d spend her whole day making meals for other people’s children, she’d still pack my lunch and leave a sticky note in it.
It was always something sweet or ridiculous, like, “Eat the fruit or I’ll haunt you,” or “You’re my favorite miracle.”
We were poor, but she never acted like we were missing out.
When the heater stopped working one winter, she filled the living room with candles and blankets and called it a spa night.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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