I recently watched the Family Appreciation Day episode and it made think. I remember how as a young lad I used to visit my grandparents all the time. I also remember how my grandma would always tell me a story about what life was like back when she was young. I always thought that the stories were so boring and looked for a way out every time. I would sometimes ask my mother "Do I have to listen to her stories? They are soooo boring!!!!!!". She would just look at me, smile, and reply with a simple "Yup!"

It wasn't until i was 17 that I finally started to value what my grandparents told me; after they were gone. My grandma would always tell me about her life as a migrant worker and how she was always on the move and my grandpa would always tell me about how his father worked day and night just so that my grandpa could go to college to provide his kids with a better life. I never really saw anything special about these stories. "Big deal" is what I would think. I didn't realize what they had to go through just so I could have the life that I have now.

As time went on I started to learn about what they went through in my history classes. It really put things into perspective. I started to realize how amazing these stories were. Even something that seemed as small as my grandmother going to vote for her first time. She would tell me about how my great grandfather worked alongside leaders such as Chavez. It just amazes me how even my father, son of a farmer, could become a senior lab tech. Then there are the stories of extreme hardship that make you appreciate the fact that you even exist.

It is reasons like this that I am disappointed that I never got a lot of chance to meet my grandparents from my mother’s side. The stories that they could tell me about what Poland was like before WWII would have been amazing. It is one thing to read about it in a text book but it is a completely different thing to hear about it from someone that was actually there.

It makes me feel good knowing that someday I will be able to bore my grandchildren to death with stories of what is happening now. I will always cherish the stories my grandparents told me above any material gift they could have ever gotten me. My niece is now in the same position that I was in a decade ago. My mother always tries to bore her with stories and she always asks me “Do I have to listen to these stories? They are so boring!!!!” I just look at her, smile, and say “Of course!”