One of My Heroes

I am a huge family person. I love my family with all my heart. I wouldn't know what to do without them. The "glue" to my family, I believe, was my grandfather (my mom's dad).

I use to love visiting Papaw in Mississippi. He was a baker and would make his apple tarts especially for me when I came over. I remember he would peel the apples sitting in his spot at the kitchen table. He would take his knife and start to peel a long string of apple peel all the way around the apple until he was done peeling it. I always found that fascinating for some reason. I would just love to sit there and watch him. He had a garden he'd tend to at his brother's house. One day I asked him (after seeing the movie Fried Green Tomatoes) if he had ever had fried green tomatoes. He said he never did. But when he got back from his garden, he brought me some green tomatoes. And together we fried them up. They weren't bad at all! We'd go to church with my grandmother on Saturdays when we visited. My grandfather would stay behind and make his famous hamburgers for us when we return from church. I loved that. He'd also fix us pancakes the morning we would leave to go home. He use to take butter and syrup and mix that together real good to make a thick glob of butter and syrup and dip his pancakes in that to eat. I tried to do that too, but I always had a hard time getting it to mix right. Papaw would grab my plate and fork and say, "Let's see." And in no time the butter syrupy glob would be on my plate just like his. To this day, I try to make that glob mixture. Sometimes I'm succesful and most of the times I'm not. I always hear him say "Let's see" in my ear when I'm trying to mix it up.

One of the many things I love about Papaw is the way he hugged. He would hug me and squeeze me so tight and whisper in my ear that he loved me over and over again. When we would leave he'd always hold out his back pocket and tell me to jump in his back pocket so I wouldn't ever leave.

One time I got the news from mom that Papaw was very sick. He went to the doctor and found out he had cancer. At the time, the tumor was as small as a pea. But, being stubborn like he was he never went to the doctor to get the tumor removed. It eventually spread to his bones. He never gave up though. He lived longer than the doctors thought he would. We were visiting one Thanksgiving in 1998 and Papaw was weak and had to stay in bed the whole time we visited. When we were leaving, he hugged me not as tight as usual but still said in my ear I love you over and over again. I will never forget that moment. Ever. I so wished that he could jump into my back pocket so he'd never leave me. His last words to me were I love you. He got so sick after that, that he couldn't even talk. We made lots of visits that year. On New Years Eve we went over to visit, and that night at about 11:30 my sister woke me up and said, "I think Papaw died." Sure enough he had gone to heaven. You know when a mirror breaks into thousands of tiny pieces? Well, that is what my heart did. For the first time I experienced my heart breaking. While everyone celebrated a new year we were planning a funeral. I guess this is why I don't like New Years Eve.

This life adventure was a hard one. But it was the first time I learned about how important life really is. Sometimes Papaw comes in my dreams and hugs me and tells me he is really there with me all the time. I believe it 100%. I would give anything to have him hug me again.