A story that has made me who I am today.
Sometimes, a lot of the time actually, I want to escape the thoughts in my head. I react to big events lightly, never accepting the real weight of bad events taking place around me. I actually kind of enjoy this trait. This is a trait that has been essential to my character since day one on this earth. This "essential" trait I speak of changed 2 years ago. This change forced me into a more serious reality then I was living before. This reality knocked me out of whatever alternative, unrealistic world I was living in. My Grandpa died two years ago. This is not a sob story in which I expect sympathy, I went through substantial growth during this period, and I wouldn't take a second of it away. Grandpa Wetzel, a jokester of a man who also was very traditional in his values stayed in a hospice for 6 months, where I visited him. I walked into his room and realized he has gone to the bathroom all over himself, and his bed. I giggled, maybe because I was uncomfortable. My Grandpa goes "honey you shouldn't be laughing, this is humiliating.". Now, understanding what humiliation feels like when someone points out your pants zipper is undone is far different then the kind of anguish my Grandpa was feeling. So, in that moment, I grew up, took a stand, and cleaned him up. From that point on, I tried to stay by his side until one day God took him away in his big, welcoming hands. My grandpa was in a better place now so, how could I be sad?. After his death, my grandma told me a little more about who my grandpa really was. It was all negative bullshit I wish I never heard. He has, throughout their lives together, hit my grandma and treated my dad like he wasn't as good as the man I know him to be. I guess this should've changed my outlook on who my grandpa was, but it didn't. People change. Things change. People move on, so I moved on. His death exemplified, even if this sounds rude, how I don't want to live my life and how I don't want to treat people. So I'm going to take this opportunity to thank my Grandpa Wetzel, for being who he was. Whether it was good or bad, he lived with no regrets and loved his family. I also want to thank him for raising the best dad ever. And I mean ever. I see my grandpa in my father every single day, all the positive attributes that were within my Grandpas heart, are in my fathers. He is a man of kindness, of traditional values, and of love. Without my grandpa, and without his death, I would not today understand what the true meaning of life is. Life is kindness. Life is hard work. Life is jokes. Life is love. Love is family.
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