By I’ll admit it. I’m a college boy. I get hungry, I like to eat. A lot.
I remember one night when I came home from work on a Friday night after a three-hour shift delivering food. I could eat a horse. I was so hungry.
My usual routine after work was to scrounge together some leftovers from the night before. I checked the fridge in my room and it was completely empty. I hadn’t gone to the grocery yet that day. I glanced at my phone: 8:30 p.m. I wasn’t pumped about going to the grocery store.
My roommate Daxon Graham, a junior, pre-med major from Dillon, asked me if I wanted to go to dinner.
I told him money was a little tight and I wasn’t trying to go out to eat.
“Come on bro, my parents will pay,” said Daxon. “You don’t have to worry about anything. They want you to come.”
“Yes!” I thought. I added a fist pump.
We ended up eating at the SilverStar, one of the nicest restaurants in Helena. The Grahams took our whole house out to eat. I ordered a fat steak with potatoes and extra toast. I ate the whole thing.
I tried paying, I really did! But it never works.
We thanked them a thousand times for dinner and the great time.
Daxon’s folks did more than just feed starving college boys. They cared for us.
I think we may have the world’s best landlords.
At the risk of annoying some students who aren’t so lucky, I’m going to tell you what kindness looks like.
Kindness looks a lot like Kent and Vanessa Graham.
Daxon Graham has been one of my best friends since elementary school. His parents, Kent and Vannessa Graham, are our landlords.
I was very fortunate to be asked if I wanted to live off campus for my junior year of college.
Daxon’s parents bought a house and put Daxon, Hunter Peck, Max Lehman, and me inside. We were only five minutes from campus. Bring on snow and ice. We can walk.
We pay rent, but Daxon’s parents have provided all of us with a place we can call home. They made countless road trips up from Dillon to Helena that summer just to work on the house, to get it ready by the time school started.
The Grahams have also filled the fridge for us on multiple occasions. Being college students, budgets are obviously tight. When the Grahams would visit, they would make sure that our fridge was full of Costco items like a green bag of Kirkland chicken sandwiches, steaks, and a six-dozen batch of eggs.
There were many nights when I was hungry and didn’t have the money to go to the grocery store. They took money out of their own wallets to help feed four students with bottomless pits as stomachs.
The Grahams have also taken us out for dinner multiple different times. We always have a blast when they come down to visit us. The dinners are always really fun.
Never once did they let us pay. Trust me we tried and we felt bad.
When they aren’t going to the grocery store for us, they bring us frozen meat from deer, elk, antelope, or fish.
This meat is clean and straight from the source. Beef is really expensive. They will bring a whole animal’s worth of meat and put it in the garage freezer.
That’s months’ worth of meat.
The food is tasty, wonderful.
But the real gift isn’t the delicious food.
The gift that matters is their loving support of us all.
The Grahams are very laid back and understand that we’re still kids. They always tell us that if we ever need anything we can reach out.
I’m not part of the Graham family.
But I feel like a son
We all do.
