It's simple, really. One weekend, my grandmother had come to stay with us. Usually, when she was in the States, she lived far away in Olympia with her brother, Hubert. When she didn't live with him, she was often halfway around the world, in the Philippines, at the orphanage she was building. That weekend, she must have been planning on speaking at some churches in our area, and that was probably why she'd come to stay with us. On Saturday morning, I woke up especially early to a noise coming from our living room, the room we never went in, unless we had guests. I found my grandmother there, on her knees, with her hands clasped in front of her, praying. She asked me if I wanted to join her and, to be polite, I joined her on my knees. I was asleep within minutes, I'm sure. I can't remember the rest of the story, I can only remember the sight of my grandmother's silhouette in the just-happening morning light, the sound of her whispered prayers, the pain it brought to my knees, just to look at her.
I was young then. Not older than seven years old, and that was the way she taught me; by showing.
