Grandmam, as I have seen in looking back, was the decider of my fate.

She shaped my life, without of course knowing what my life would be.

She taught me many things that I was going to need to know, without either us knowing I would need to know them.

She made the connections that made my life….

If it hadn’t been for her, what would my life have been?

I don’t know.

I know it surely would have been different.

And it is only by looking back, as an old woman myself, like her a widow and a grandmother, that I can see how much she loved me and can pay her out of my heart the love I owe her.

– Wendell Berry – Hannah Coulter.