This isn’t my story. It’s what I want my story to be, and I already know how I want it to play out because I’ve seen my grandpa go through it in his life. I didn’t realize what my grandpa meant to me until my grandma passed away. I sat in the cemetery and watched him cry silently, and I realized he was crying because a little bit of his life was gone, a life that he has always lived to the fullest.

I don’t want this to sound like a cheesy, sixth-grade essay and say my grandpa is my hero—but he is my hero. He’s the type of person everybody likes to be around. My mom never stops telling stories about when she was in high school. She’d go to the basketball games and all the boys would ignore her and go hang out with my grandpa. Even to this day, he makes a point of being social, whether it’s talking to everyone at a family reunion or going to card night where he lives. He’s just a genuinely nice guy without even trying, and sometimes I wish being a plain old nice guy would come as easily to me.

He also has a good heart. He wouldn’t lie or cheat anyone. I remember going to Long John Silver’s with him and my grandma one afternoon when I was in grade school. They would only let me get water to drink with my meal, and being the spoiled little kid I was I ignored them and filled my cup with soda. My grandpa noticed and immediately trudged back to the register, with me in tow, and paid for the soda I took. I didn’t really get what the big deal was at the time, but as I grew up I began to understand how the little things could affect my character.

My grandpa has always been a hard worker, a trait I know he hasn’t passed on to me. I’m lazy and put things off until the last minute. I always tried to get out of doing chores as a kid, such as mowing the lawn.

My grandpa never backed down from a task, though. He was raised on a farm with seven siblings. Once he got back from World War II, he married my grandmother and from that day he worked all the time until he was in his 70s. Yes, he was working at the grain elevator in Wakefield when he was 70. He was always working to provide for his family. He made parts for space shuttles at a factory in California, was a carpenter, and ran his own burger place in Wakefield for a while. He always worked hard to be a provider. I wish I had his strong work ethic.

My grandpa is a storyteller, one trait I definitely got from him. I’m more of a written word guy, though, and he always does the talking. He always has a joke or story to tell on any occasion. I remember the night of his 50th wedding anniversary. He made the whole room crack up with this joke: “A man and his wife were getting ready to have their seventh child. They had six boys and were hoping for a girl, but when the baby came out a boy, the father cried, ‘Dammit!’, so that’s what they named him. It got him a lot of grief in school, and the class spelling bee was coming up. Now, the principal in the school was new and wanted to observe the classrooms and thought the spelling bee would be a good start. He walked in as Dammit was up to spell and the boy said, ‘I’m going to spell Philadelphia.’ The teacher looked up and said, ‘Dammit, you can’t spell Philadelphia.’ At this the principal was shocked and replied, ‘Well, hell, at least let him try!’”

He also inspires me to roll with the punches and not take everything so seriously. Once, on his friend’s property in the country, he parked on a hill so he could open the gate to get through. I was sitting in the passenger seat when gravity slowly started to take its toll. The car began rolling backwards down the hill and I was scared shitless; I was 10 at the time. I couldn’t move, but my grandpa came bounding back to the truck and put on the handbrake. He looked over at me and saw my face was as white as a ghost. He then started laughing hysterically.

That incident really characterizes my grandpa’s genial natural. He’s always sure of himself and I always tend to over think everything. He jumped in and immediately pulled the handbrake in the truck, while I was in the cab hesitating. I guess that’s just one of the many things I’ve learned from my grandpa as I’ve grown up. Sometimes, you really have to just live in the moment.