I’m 18, and I graduated from high school last week. People keep asking me what’s next, but honestly, it doesn’t feel like anything’s started. If anything, it feels like something ended too soon, and the world forgot to hit “play” again. Everything still smells like the cafeteria—warm rolls, floor wax, and cleaning spray. Sometimes I think I hear her footsteps in the kitchen, even though I know better.
My grandma, Lorraine, raised me. She was it. The whole deal. She became my mother, my father, and every support beam in my life since the car crash that took my parents when I was just a toddler. She was 52 when she took me in, already working full-time as a cafeteria cook at my future school, living in a house so old it creaked whenever the wind changed. There were no backup plans. Just the two of us and a world that didn’t slow down to help.
The Woman Behind the Counter
Her name was Lorraine, but at school, they called her “Miss Lorraine” or just “Lunch Lady,” as if it were some anonymous job title instead of the woman who practically raised half the kids in town. She was 70 and still came to work before dawn, her thin gray hair tied with a scrunchie she made herself. Every apron she wore had a different fabric—sunflowers, strawberries, or bright checkers. She said they made the kids smile.
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