We talked to her as our memories watched from the walls – and they seemed less cruel then. They were tributes to a life of happiness, full of love and achievements and adventure. I choked out “I love you” through tears as I patted her hand and walked out the door.
The beautiful words, written by Grade 11 student Jasmine Hobbs about her grandma’s dementia, were initially only to be read by her English teacher. But this past week her essay was published by The Globe and Mail newspaper, reaching readers across Canada and beyond.
“It’s really nice that a lot of people got to read it because with a lot of the things I write, I write them hoping people will read them, even though I know nobody ever will,” Jasmine says. “When I wrote this, I thought, ‘I'm going to write this to be interesting to other people,’ so it was really nice when a lot of other people did read it, and it felt meaningful to them.”
Jasmine wrote a first draft of her essay, “I learned how to see my grandma, not her dementia,” soon after her grandma died about two years ago. This year, she revisited the piece when her Literary Studies 11 teacher, Mr. Brad Edgington, assigned a personal essay.
“Mr. Edgington said it should be something that has happened to us that has maybe taught us a lesson,” she says. “I decided to bring it up again because I thought I could expand upon it and make it better. I keep a journal so I went through my old entries and took out stories to use in the essay.”
Brad says he was immediately impressed by Jasmine’s writing when she submitted the piece.
“Stylistically it was mature to me. I really appreciate a concise, straightforward style and I think that works quite well in the essay,” he says. “She did a really fine job of having that concise style but also sprinkling stylistic flourishes without overdoing it.”
For the last few years, Brad has encouraged students to submit their writing to The Globe and Mail for consideration in their First Person section, which is for personal essays. This year, he tapped a couple of students on the shoulder, to really encourage them to do so – and Jasmine was one of them.
She emailed her essay to The Globe and Mail but didn’t expect to hear back. Sure enough, last month she did.
“I was so excited. I thought it was really cool,” she says.
“I learned how to see my grandma, not her dementia” was published in the Saturday, February 5 edition of the newspaper. Since then, Jasmine has been flooded with complimentary messages from classmates, teachers and strangers (via the comments section on the essay online).
“I actually got an email from the editor and she said I had fan mail. Someone had emailed her from California who said they read it and said, ‘Wow, this was really touching. I’m going through this with my mother right now, and it made me feel better,’” Jasmine says. “It's sad that dementia is such a shared experience but I’m glad that what I wrote has helped people go through their experience.”
