My most treasured….

Photos that I associate with happiness and loss would have to be ones of my grandpa M. My favorite is the picture where I had caught a small fish. It was a perch. I was around 4 or 5 years old. I had gone camping at Lake Brevort with my grandpa and grandma in the U.P. Me and my grandpa were out fishing in his boat. I remember it was dark green, it was made of metal, and it was both paddle and motor driven. We‘d go out on the lake for hours in which I had the times of my life. I liked when my grandpa paddled because he would sometimes let me help him. When I wasn’t helping him I would watch him do it. I loved to watch the paddles make little tornados it the water. But my favorite spot to sit was at the bow. I would always put my hand in the water and act as if it was a fish swimming. These memories are my most cherished because it was when I was young that my grandpa was most vivid in my mind. This is because I’ve grown up with him. He was there when my parents split, and when I stated school. Ever since I was two months old I’ve gone camping every summer. Spent the night at his house three times every other week, at most. My mom lived in town and every other week I was with her. And hung out with him all the time; he was my friend when I had none; because we lived so far out of town I never got to see any of my school friends. As I reached my early teens we moved to Petoskey and I could only see him on weekends, then he got sick (lung cancer). He had to have 1/3 of his right lung removed and couldn’t do the things he could before. We stopped going camping as offend, He stopped taking me fishing, and he stayed inside most of the time. A year or two later my grandma died of a stroke or a heart attack; and he was never the same. This was heart-breaking for me because he was no longer the man I looked up to or remembered. This happened six years ago and he got worse with each year. He got sick again; he gave up and didn’t fight. I watched him crumble to nothing; until last October he quit completely and he passed away. I was his first; first granddaughter, and first to find out. The whole time he was sick I stayed away. I didn’t go to his house, and I didn’t call and talk. I couldn’t see him like that; it hurt me too much. He could barely move and he had trouble remembering me. I had gone down to see him one weekend and realized he didn’t have much longer. I left that Sunday and decided to call him every day after school for the last few weeks he had left. My mom picked me and my sisters up from school that Monday and I went to call him. She looked at me and asked who I was calling; I told her who and she took the phone from me. It was then I knew something wasn’t right and I had that bad feeling in my gut but I didn’t say what, I wouldn’t and I couldn’t. We got home and she took me to my room. She told me what I feared most. That day I was the first and only to know and to cry. This day I remember so well was my sister’s birthday. October 20th, 2008. Mom told me not to say anything; she’d tell her and my other siblings the next day. I was the first and his first, and this is why these pictures are so treasured.