My Grandmother Died And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt

I have another story published to Slackjaw, my third in less than two months! I continue to receive such wonderful feedback from friends and family as well as the Medium community. I wish I had gotten into comedy writing a lot sooner. I think I’m quickly finding my niche.

The story is as ridiculous as the title suggests. Follow the tale of an ungrateful granddaughter as she bemoans her lack of a “present” following the death of her grandmother.

I was fortunate to have a strong relationship with all of my grandparents, and I think of them often. I’m not sure if they would have gotten the dark humour in this piece, but they would have been proud of me for putting myself out there and chasing my writing dreams.

My maternal grandparents were working class people and never had much money. But they never spent much either, and when they passed, they left me money which I put towards my first (and, to date, only) car.

My paternal grandparents were better off financially, and they loved to buy nice things. When I look around my apartment, I see many of their cherished belongings: their end tables prop up my TV and their vanity license plate (go Blue Jays!) hangs on my wall. They also left me money, which I used to pay off an unexpectedly large tax bill.

But mostly, all four of my grandparents left me with something much more valuable: what it means to be a good person. Their generation was selfless in a way people today can never emulate. Three of my grandparents emigrated at a young age from Europe (just before Hitler could get his dirty hands on them). And in Canada, all four of them grew up in the Depression. Living through such hard times instilled a sense of community and compassion that society seems to be lacking these days.

Thinking of them all today.