Excuse my hair in this one, but this picture pretty much represents me in a way. This is me with my grandparents on one of my birthdays, I think 18 but I could be wrong. I'm such a family oriented person, I can't begin to explain how much my family means to me! But you'll need a bit of a back story to see why this is so important...
My mom was 17 when she had me, my dad left before I was born so I didn't really have him around, since my mom was so young we obviously lived with my grandparents, I have two aunts that were younger than my mom so we lived with them too. I was practically raised by this whole gang of people. My grandpa was the father figure in my life, my aunts were like sisters, and my grandma was a typical grandma. My aunts would always do my hair, especially for picture day, and sometimes, if I was lucky, they'd take me to the mall with them. I'd get to have sleepovers and watch MadTV with them. We even had our little nicknames and games with each other (my favorite has to be our "guppy guppy". I was a HUGE Little Mermaid Fan and so my aunt Cindy would come up to me and we'd pinch each others cheeks and say guppy guppy. I get to pass that on to her kids now!). I love my family with everything in me and know I would definitely not be even 1/10th of the person I am today without them and their influence. They taught me so much, gave me so much responsibility, and really helped me in times of need.
Now my grandpa, can I just say EVERYONE should of had a grandpa like mine! He is the perfect guy! I'm not saying that because he was mine, he really was. No one will ever be able to replace him in my life, and no one could come close to being the guy he was in my life. I was his first grandchild so him and I had a really special bond growing up. I have so many memories of him and me spending time together. He was my Papa, the greatest one that ever lived. He was great with babies, great with teenagers, great with everyone. I have to say he is the biggest reason for any decision I made. I love the rest of my family, but growing up I always wanted to make sure I had his approval. He earned your respect just by being him, he didn't have to do anything to do it, you just knew he was great. He was also funny, he loved making people laugh!
It's heartbreaking to talk about, even to this day, but he ended up passing away on Halloween back in '08. I will never forget that day because I dreaded it for my whole life. He was the hardest person to say goodbye to, he meant so much to us all, but his and my bond, that's the hardest thing to not have around anymore. I know he'll always be there and I always will remember him and make sure to do things he'd approve of, but there really was a drastic change when he passed. I still hate celebrating Halloween sometimes, but sometimes I want to in his spirit. I love him so much and miss him terribly every single day, it still brings tears to my eyes to think about it. My favorite part of his funeral, however, was people had showed up who knew him when they lived next to him when he was a child! Can you imagine knowing someone so long ago and still they made such an impression on you that you show up to their funeral? I can honestly say no one had ever made such an impression on me when I was younger. When I saw that it inspired me to try and be that same kind of person. Some days I don't achieve it, unfortunately, but it is someone I ultimately would like to be in other's lives.
So that's why this is so important to me, when he was in the hospital a nurse saw this picture and said you can see how close I was to him with my head leaned into his like that. She said it really showed our bond. It's true, he really meant a lot to me and showed me love and how important family is in life. I'll love him forever for the lessons he taught and hope to pass on to my children in the future.
Until Day 25...
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