K9soul
10-02-2004, 02:37 PM
Today it has been one year to the day that my grandpa passed away. You know how you read sometimes how a period of mourning lasts "a year and a day." I never really understood the significance of that when I was younger, but now I do. Every season's turn and every holiday of that first year, it's the first time without that person. My first birthday to pass without him calling, the first Christmas without him, the first spring... and now it has come full turn. Today it feels almost as if it were a year ago and it hurts. I don't ever want to have a birthday or Christmas go by without thinking of him..
He was a lot more than a grandpa to me, he was a dad to me in a lot of ways. My parents divorced when I was a baby. Mom moved away, and my real dad wanted nothing more to do with me and I never saw him again. It was my grandpa who bought me my first fishing rod and took me camping and fishing, taught me to love music and dance, had me read to him when I first learned how, and so much more. He was a jeweler and he made our wedding bands when David and I were married. It was the last jewelry project he completed, as his health deteriorated too much after that.
His favorite song was Stranger on the Shore by Acker Bilk, and though his health was too poor to come to Minnesota when I was married, we had Stranger on the Shore played at our reception for a special dance honoring him. My Mom called him on her cell phone so he could hear the song and know the dance was for him.
I wish I could say how much he meant to me, how much he still does, but there are no words. The closest I've come was the poem I wrote to him when I was 17. I've been working on a memorial page for him today. It's nothing elaborate and I actually want to add more in time.
I'm not looking for responses with this really, I know it can be hard to know what to say to something like this. I just felt a need to put my feelings down. I needed to tell others about my grandpa and how special he was to me, and how much I miss him.
The page I'm working on is Here (http://www.doordolt.com/jess/repratka.html)
He was a lot more than a grandpa to me, he was a dad to me in a lot of ways. My parents divorced when I was a baby. Mom moved away, and my real dad wanted nothing more to do with me and I never saw him again. It was my grandpa who bought me my first fishing rod and took me camping and fishing, taught me to love music and dance, had me read to him when I first learned how, and so much more. He was a jeweler and he made our wedding bands when David and I were married. It was the last jewelry project he completed, as his health deteriorated too much after that.
His favorite song was Stranger on the Shore by Acker Bilk, and though his health was too poor to come to Minnesota when I was married, we had Stranger on the Shore played at our reception for a special dance honoring him. My Mom called him on her cell phone so he could hear the song and know the dance was for him.
I wish I could say how much he meant to me, how much he still does, but there are no words. The closest I've come was the poem I wrote to him when I was 17. I've been working on a memorial page for him today. It's nothing elaborate and I actually want to add more in time.
I'm not looking for responses with this really, I know it can be hard to know what to say to something like this. I just felt a need to put my feelings down. I needed to tell others about my grandpa and how special he was to me, and how much I miss him.
The page I'm working on is Here (http://www.doordolt.com/jess/repratka.html)