This Week's Memory

Welcome Back for this week's walk down memory lane. Click on the button above if you would like to join!

In past posts I have talked a lot about my mom, brother and Josh.This week I have decided to write about my gramps (my mom's dad). My brother and I spent lots of time at my mom's parent's. After my parent's divorce we lived with them and then once we left they would watch us after school. We had a pretty average routine. We would take the bus to school and then most days my grandma would be waiting in the parking lot. On a rare occasion, my grandpa would pick us up...and that always meant one thing...MILKSHAKES!! You see we had a McDonald's across the street from school so when he came and picked us up we always got to go to get milkshakes. My grandpa looks and acts just like Walter Malthau from the Grumpy Old Men movies. So, it was always an interesting time. We would go to his "club" which back then I thought was like a secret place only for old people. Now I know its just like a VFW place. He would hang with his other old men buddies and my brother and I would play Ms. Pac Man and run around.

When I was a sophomore in college my grandpa was diagnosed with mouth cancer a few weeks before I was due to move back home for the summer. I remember being so scared of what that summer was going to hold...chemo, losing hair, sickness and all that other stuff that comes with cancer. I had a very hard time going home cause home had become so unknown to me. That summer I watched my Grandpa literally shrink into someone I didn't know due to losing so much weight. It was a very hard time for us all. Thankfully, he is currently in remission and just has to go back to the doctors every so often to get checked.

I know that God could have taken my grandpa away from me that summer and I thank him everyday that he didn't. I am so glad he is alive to see my brother get married, to meet his first great grandchild and to see me achieving all my crazy goals in life. I am so incredibly lucky to have him in my life.

And I know my mom is reading this and crying....Mom, stop crying...I love you!

Thanks for stopping by,

Jess Bay