Remembering my Grandmother

Technically I am the child of a single parent household, but that discounts my grandmother's role in my upbringing.
My mother was the sole breadwinner in our house, and, thanks to union wages, we lived in a nice house in a good neighbourhood.
My mother's mother was the home body. She packed my lunches for school, and was there when I got home.For all practical purposes I was raised in a same-sex two parent household, but this post isn't about that.

This is my long-overdue return to blogging. It comes the day after my grandmother, who passed away in 1996, would have turned 100.
I've missed blogging, and as much as I love to use the excuse "I'm too busy", the truth is much more personal than that.
The truth is I didn't think I was good enough. Yeah, I know, I've seen what's on the Internet.
I, like many people, have insecurities, and one of mine is the belief that: whatever I do is not very good, anything I do is something anyone else could have done at least as well and/or that if something I do is "good", I will be pronounced a fraud at any time.
Which, of course, is crazy.
I'm not perfect, nobody is, but some of what I do is good.  I've been told so by people who have no vested interest in me, or anything I may do.
Someone else may be able to write my blog better than me, but then, it wouldn't be my blog, now would it?
Lastly, I'm not a fraud. What I create is my own, I'm sure someone could look through my works and find the various influences (I'll cop to The Simpsons, Chuck Jones and biblical references), but that isn't the same as me being a fraud.
Everyone builds on what came before. Everyone.
Now to tie this all together.
Stay with me, it'll be worth it.
A lot of my fiction and poetry tell the story of my grandmother. With liberties mind you, I'm not planning to write a biography. At least not yet.
My grandmother's life is one of the things I build upon. And, to give my mother the credit she is due, I had a good, stable home life because of the choices and sacrifices she made.
What I write is my voice, it comes from my unique experiences building upon what has come before.
Others may say things similar to me, but never in the way I do if I am true to myself, my instincts and my experiences.
The things that influence me, like The Simpsons, Chuck Jones and the Bible, are expressed through the lens, colours and chords of my life.
To celebrate and honour my late grandmother, I'm back to doing the things I love.