I saw Brittany again during the spring county fair.<\/p>\n
We had shared funnel cake the year before, and this time we ran into each other near the agricultural exhibits.<\/p>\n
She asked about my classes.<\/p>\n
I asked about the bank.<\/p>\n
We talked for a while before she mentioned a farmer she had been working with.<\/p>\n
His family had been dealing with a drainage issue, and the problem had affected the condition of part of their land.<\/p>\n
Brittany had spent time helping them understand what information the bank needed before it could consider their request.<\/p>\n
She had also helped arrange a conversation with the county engineer.<\/p>\n
It wasn't a dramatic rescue.<\/p>\n
It was a series of small steps.<\/p>\n
But she seemed satisfied with the work.<\/p>\n
\u201cI used to think the hardest part was telling people no,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIsn't it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes. But sometimes the hardest part is making sure you understand the question before you answer it.\u201d<\/p>\n
I smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat sounds like something Grandpa would say.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe probably would.\u201d<\/p>\n
She looked across the fairgrounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think about that morning more than I'd like to admit.\u201d<\/p>\n
I waited.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still feel ashamed of how I treated him. I don't think that's going away completely.\u201d<\/p>\n
She didn't sound as though she expected me to tell her she shouldn't feel that way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don't want it to be the thing that defines me,\u201d she continued. \u201cBut I don't want to forget it, either.\u201d<\/p>\n
I understood what she meant.<\/p>\n
Some mistakes should leave a mark.<\/p>\n
Not because we need to punish ourselves forever, but because remembering them can help us avoid repeating them.<\/p>\n
Brittany had stopped trying to escape the memory.<\/p>\n
She had learned to use it.<\/p>\n
We bought another funnel cake and sat near the edge of the fairgrounds.<\/p>\n
She told me that she had recently helped a customer who arrived angry about a loan decision.<\/p>\n
He had been convinced that the bank was treating him unfairly.<\/p>\n
Brittany listened while he explained what had happened.<\/p>\n
Then she reviewed the information with him.<\/p>\n
The bank still couldn't approve the request as submitted.<\/p>\n
But she was able to explain the reasons and identify what additional information would be needed for the application to be reconsidered.<\/p>\n
The customer left disappointed, but he understood the decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was a good day,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though you couldn't approve it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEspecially because I couldn't approve it and still managed to help.\u201d<\/p>\n
She brushed powdered sugar from her thumb.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don't need everybody to leave happy. I need them to know I took them seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n
I thought about how she had treated Grandpa.<\/p>\n
She hadn't taken him seriously.<\/p>\n
She'd looked at his boots and made up her mind before she understood what he was asking.<\/p>\n
Now she was describing a job in which taking people seriously mattered more than making them like her.<\/p>\n
It seemed like a meaningful change.<\/p>\n
When we parted, she thanked me for talking with her.<\/p>\n
I told her she didn't need to thank me.<\/p>\n
She smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
That answer stayed with me.<\/p>\n
A year earlier, she might have thanked me because she was afraid I was judging her.<\/p>\n
Now she could accept a conversation without trying to earn approval from everyone involved.<\/p>\n
She had learned that she couldn't control what people thought of her.<\/p>\n
She could control how she treated them.<\/p>\n
I returned to the farm that evening.<\/p>\n
Grandpa was on the porch, checking the rainfall measurements in his little spiral notebook.<\/p>\n
He looked up as I approached.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow was town?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGood.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSee anybody you know?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBrittany.\u201d<\/p>\n
He nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow's she doing?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGood. She's working in agricultural lending.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat's good.\u201d<\/p>\n
I sat in the chair beside him.<\/p>\n
For a while, we watched the light fade over the fields.<\/p>\n
I told him about our conversation at the fair.<\/p>\n
He listened without interrupting.<\/p>\n
When I finished, he tapped the notebook against his knee.<\/p>\n
\u201cSounds like she's learning.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe is.\u201d<\/p>\n
He opened the notebook and checked the previous day's rainfall.<\/p>\n
Then he wrote down the current measurement.<\/p>\n
I watched his pencil move across the page.<\/p>\n
It was a plain little notebook, with a spiral binding and pages that curled slightly at the corners.<\/p>\n
He kept it because he liked having a record of the weather.<\/p>\n
He never imagined someone would want to display it in a bank lobby.<\/p>\n
I thought about Walter's old ledger, with its careful entry about the north quarter-section.<\/p>\n
Two different records.<\/p>\n
One had preserved a decision that helped save a bank.<\/p>\n
The other preserved the daily rain that helped Grandpa decide what to do with his fields.<\/p>\n
Neither had been created to impress anyone.<\/p>\n
They existed because somebody thought the information mattered.<\/p>\n
I looked toward the road.<\/p>\n
\u201cGrandpa, do you ever wish you'd done things differently?\u201d<\/p>\n
He kept his eyes on the notebook.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbout what?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bank.\u201d<\/p>\n
He considered the question.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEven knowing what happened that morning?\u201d<\/p>\n
He closed the notebook.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happened that morning was wrong. What I did back then was still the right thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
I sat quietly.<\/p>\n
He looked at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose are two different things, Casey.\u201d<\/p>\n
I knew he was right.<\/p>\n
Brittany's behavior hadn't changed the value of Grandpa's decision in 1973.<\/p>\n
And the land he'd pledged hadn't made her behavior any less wrong.<\/p>\n
One thing did not cancel the other.<\/p>\n
He had helped the bank because he believed the town needed it.<\/p>\n
She had judged him because she was afraid of being judged herself.<\/p>\n
Neither fact erased the consequences of the choices they'd made.<\/p>\n
But one choice had helped build something.<\/p>\n
And the other had become the beginning of a lesson.<\/p>\n
I looked out at the fields.<\/p>\n
Grandpa reopened his notebook and returned to his measurements.<\/p>\n
I didn't ask anything else.<\/p>\n
For once, I felt that I had understood what he meant without needing him to explain it twice.<\/p>\n
Source: kaylestore.net<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n I saw Brittany again during the spring county fair. We had shared funnel cake the year before, and this time we ran into each other near the agricultural exhibits. She … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10159,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sharestory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10170"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10182,"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10170\/revisions\/10182"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onesharedstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nClick here to continue reading: PART 12: Years From Now, I Will Still Remember the Mud on Grandpa’s Boots and the Quiet Way He Taught Us What Respect Was Worth<\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"