Reading broken_dreamer's journal

Today was my Grandpa’s birthday. He turned 76. Wow…

I thought of him a lot today, as I find myself doing quite often. It never ceases to amaze me what an incredible man he is. After all he’s been through, he is still the most faithful man of God I have ever encountered.

He loves children. So much so that he has dedicated over 30 years of his life in simply making sure a group of church buses go out to pick up children all over the area who otherwise wouldn’t be able to make it. He also goes out to each of their houses every Saturday passing out candy and seeing who is planning to attend the next day.

In the absence of my father, his son, he has done all he can for myself and my family. Not just my siblings, but my mother (his ex-daughter-in-law) and my brother of another father as well. He is such an inspiration and encourages all of us so much. Despite the fact that my parents have been divorced for 13 years, he still remains an important and welcome member of my mother’s side of the family.

Everywhere he goes, everyone shows him such great respect, and it isn’t because he enforces it in them. You can just see the way the people in a room light up when he walks in. It’s amazing.

He is the only person to always tell me how proud he is. Don’t get me wrong, my parents and other loved ones tell me that, too, but not very often. His words of wisdom and encouragement mean so much to me. The day he passes on will be incredibly heartrending.

Simple gestures he does have so much meaning and emotion behind them. For example, my sister and I called him today to wish him happy birthday and he asked me when my next day off was so he could take us out to breakfast. Nothing fancy or expensive, just time to be together. We’re going to meet him first thing in the morning. Short moments such as these are things I miss so much from my childhood. We did those things all the time. As I grow older, it becomes more difficult to spend a lot of time with him, but I’m trying so hard. Being away 9 months out of the year proves to interfere, but that isn’t really an excuse. I often feel so sad while away at school when I check my voicemail and he leaves a simple message saying he was thinking of me and he loves me. Just thinking about all these simple, special things brings me to tears.

Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live.

This post was edited by broken_dreamer on Jul 08, 2005.