‘Justin, I’m still not sure about that Jerry Rice.’ I wouldn’t want anyones’ existence boiled down to a sentence who meant so much to so many, but to me it was always perfect. My grandmother Marie Hirn was someone to everyone she ever interacted with because she was kindness embodied. My only regret with her was I never gave her any of those great-grandchildren that she thought about and I never wanted, but for that I’m passing the blame to Ryan, Jay, and Cortney in that order.

I was starting third grade and my mother was no longer going to be teaching at the school I attended, so that meant I would be doing the coming and going with my grandma that year. When you’re that age you don’t know why exactly the things are happening around you, but you’re damn sure glad that third grade didn’t mean another nun. Beyond that great realization another one soon formed: that I had the best grandma on the planet that year, save maybe Happy Gilmore.

Marie worked in the cafeteria and we would commute together. She had to be there way earlier than I did, so she would try to pacify me with Doug’s gameboy until it was time to go upstairs. It might have been then that I got my caffeine addiction started, because when the others had coffee, I had diet Dr. Pepper. I’ll never stop appreciating it in retrospect, because not everyone gets to grow up, as I later came to think: ‘A 4-Iron from your grandma.’

During that time it was really the after school part that was most appealing, I would walk or ride back and she introduced me to Hershey’s strawberry milk. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it or had it since, but it was amazing back then. She also had twizlers waiting for me most days, and I lived like a king in that transition. Before my parents picked me up there were a lot of days she spent watching NFL Films she could not care less about, but was always putting the remote in my hand.

I developed my love of my favorite athlete of all time, Tiger Woods during that period, as he played as an amateur. Let’s be honest though, the thing that made Marie an angel was that she would play Tecmo Bowl with me on the original Nintendo. I was a third-grade-asshole: I ran up the score, I tried to teach her, but no matter what Jerry Rice won the day. Looking back on what she left behind, all the wonderful kids that I still enjoy spending time with, Jerry Rice would be glad to know Marie.