Grampa, I love you

My favorite grampa died a week ago.

This was the grampa who could design and build and improve anything: rockets, sailboats, furniture, houses, a pinball machine, front offices, display cases, department stores.

The grampa who drove over from Cambria Heights to Flushing at 10:00 at night to pick me up after I received bothersome phone calls from an ex-boyfriend.

The muscle-bound tough guy who never smiled for photographs until after he started dating my gramma. He would have done anything for his wife and son and grandkids. It turns out he was a romantic, too.

There are so many stories. The only thing better than hearing the stories at all would have been hearing them from him.

Obviously, it's still pretty raw. As I sit here licking my wounds, I'm reminded of these stories (we went through a lot of them this weekend. I learned a lot more about him than I had ever known) and it is clear, even clearer now than before, that the main thing, the absolute most important thing in the world is love.

So here is some advice. You may not be able to pick your family, but when you're lucky enough to be born with a man like my grampa in yours... well... please, please cherish it all.