I got the worst news I have ever had on the worst day possible. I had already been to school, got lots of stressful homework, and had my friends ignore me because they were moody. It was after I went to the football game and stood on the bleachers for hours. As soon as I came in the door of my house I flopped on the couch and dozed off until I was jolted awake by my mother with a distraught look on her face. I was extremely sad but drowsy as she told me “Zack grandma Fletcher just informed me that today the nursing home called her after dinner and told her that grandma Peterson passed away.” I didn’t think that she was actually gone. I didn’t cry I wasn't even sad at the moment all I could think to say in a little mournful voice was “Ohh sad”.  

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Papermaking was introduced to Japan from the Asian continent. After they began to make paper more efficiently, they started to develop it into thinner sheets which were still as durable as the thicker sheets also known as washi. They began to use paper for more and more things like gift wrapping or offerings they bring to their shrines. As this paper wrapping became more popular, people began to fold it different ways to make it more attractive to the eye. The new trend developed into the creation of origami.

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My first spark of interest in origami was at the age of about seven or eight. I first saw it when my brother, just older than me learned how to make an origami fortune teller at that age it was the most intricate and coolest thing that I had ever seen. He could make these fortune tellers in seconds; he could make big ones, and small ones, basically one of every size. Of course I wanted to be exactly like my brother so I learned how to do it from my mother. As soon as I learned I would make about ten every day and I would go around the house asking people if they wanted their fortunes told. Eventually I stopped making them and lost interest in fortune tellers, in grade school it was the coolest thing ever to make a rose (which you could also make to look like a mouse). That was my first fascination of origami and how I came to love making such beautiful creations with just my hands and a piece of paper.

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The funeral was a day or two after I got the news I am pretty sure it was on a Friday. I had to skip school so that I could attend the viewing and the funeral talks about my grandma. I think the viewing was the when I finally realized that I would never get to hear my grandma's laugh her corny jokes or even be able to bring her one of the latest art pieces that I created. As soon as I walked into the room and saw her I just broke down I started bawling all I wanted to do was curl up in a secluded corner and cry for the rest of my life. It was an awful experience that I never want to go through again. One of the most heartfelt moments was when all of the adults went up to say good bye they grabbed her hand and kissed her head but at the first touch of her each of them jerked back at the initial coldness of her hands.

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I love the crisp sound in the air as you scrape your fingernail across the fold you made to look exact and perfect like a perfect summer's day as you lie out in the sun letting the light breeze cool of you skin as your skin is being baked to perfection in the sun. I love the thin but strong feeling of the paper as if I am tucking this paper in for sleep like my mother used to do for me when I was just a child tucking just tight enough to make me comfortable. I love this feeling that I have created something perfect yet unique as if I had just been the master of all creation just long enough to make a living breathing creature. This feeling that I crave day and night as I create something new is the best thing in the world.

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The next thing we did was go to the grave site to bury her. This was luckily on a very beautiful autumn day. It wasn't to hot or too cold, which made this thought of death and passing away not so hard. The flower arrangements were very heartwarming to look at there were so  many colors that I didn't think flowers would be, which very much suited my grandma's personality crazy but yet very beautiful. I think that one of the best parts was when they told each of the children to take one of the roses off of the coffin as if this was a symbol of take a piece of my grandma's beauty with them. The rest of the funeral procession was pretty simple and yet very hard for us to carry out, setting the coffin on the conveyor belt that brought it down six feet the taking of the flowers the goodbye prayer. It was all very heart wrenching.

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The feeling that I get about creating something is this overwhelming delighted feeling that rises in my throat and gets stuck there until I can't resist letting it out so I give out a high pitched hiccup of a laugh. The kind of laugh that you get embarrassed about letting it out but at the moment you don't care what people think because of your elated feeling. I love the fact that you can have no care in the world and be the happiest person alive. I love when you feel so loved by the people you're around that you just want to hug the living daylights out of everybody. I love when you can see that kind of passion almost interlaced into every mountain fold and every valley fold. I crave the many different creases and folds that interlock with perfect tightness to make it as perfect looking as possible.

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Origami instructions were passed down through generations, they passed it down via oral instruction. They were even passed around in trade, and eventually Arabia and Spain became enthralled with this new form of art and were able teach enough people to make it popular for both continents. This art form is still used there today but it hasn't just stuck to these few continents; it’s has been passed throughout the world.

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The way that Grandma Peterson is connected to me is kind of complicated yet pretty simple. So my mother’s step dad which we don't really consider step grandpa because he had to raise my mom's family because my biological grandfather was unfaithful and crude to my grandma which I assumed would be practically impossible because she is the nicest person alive. Anyway my “step-grandfather’s” previous wife’s stepmother. But we kind of adopted her into our family as another grandma. Majority of us kids just thought that she was our grandma we never even stopped to think that normally there isn't two grandmas on one side of the family. We all loved visiting her and loved bringing her food, gifts, even just give her our time because if the situation was switched around she would visit you every day even if she didn’t have time. Although I wish that I would have been even closer to her and visited her more frequently like most people say “you don't know what you have until it's gone”. Now that she is gone I realize that nobody loved my crafts more she did or at least acted like they were her most favorite thing in the whole world which made me the happiest person in the world. I knew that every time I made something new I could give it to her and she would appreciate so much that she would hang it up on her wall or put it on her shelf of beautiful indian trinkets.

I know that this essay made me realize how much my grandmother was an inspiration and how much I loved her and had the best time ever in the whole world to talk to her and she was a fantastic influence on my life and the life of my family. The research and activity part of this essay opened my eyes to the fact that I do enjoy origami.

"Kids Web Japan." History. Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Japan, n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2015.
"The History of Origami in Japan." OKAMURA Masao, n.d. Web.
"Joseph Wu Origami." Joseph Wu Origami. Joseph Wu, 15 July 2006. Web. 18 Nov. 2015. .