It's strange, but the one person who I miss the most is someone I don't remember much about... My Great Grandfather died when I was little... We didn't get to spend a lot of my life togeather, because my father was in the army, and the first three years of my life we spent in Germany... But I spent enough time with him to know that Papa was a very kind, generious and patent man... Very, very patient...

I vaguely remember endless hours spend on my Nanny's back porch with that man... He'd sit there and watch me while I plaied with the lizards and told him of any event or thought that came to my head... And he never once made me feel even slightly less than perfect about my speech... Even though he coudln't understand but maybe 1 or 2 words out of every 18 or so I said... He gave me the utmost attention... He gave me the attention he'd give my sister, my cusins, or even the adults, when we had our little conversations... And even though when I look at his picture I'm unsure if it is, infact, my Papa... I will never forget all the attention and love he gave me...

It might seem a bit strange, but I fell that I we shaired a special bond... He knew what it was like to have such a speech problem because when he was small, I believe, he had one too... And I can't help but wonder if he recieved the kind of attention and adoreation he gave me... My Daddy tellsme , on occasion, how my speech theripy or how no one except my mother could really understand what I was trying to say... Poor Momma... She was the person they called upon to inturpert what I had to say into normal, comprehendable english... Anyways... When I was little they used to talk about my speech impediment occasionally, and my Papa was always the first one to assure everyone that I'd 'overcome it and learn how to talk better than anyone in this room can'...

I don't know if Papa got the kind of attention I got from my Mother and him, when he was little or not... I know that he wasn't very eduicated because, just like in the history books, he had to drop out of school around the 6th grade and go to work on the family farm to help keep clothes on everyones back and food in their stomachs... But I know that he for ever left an impression on me that my Great Grandfather was one of the hardest working, most nobel men ever to trod this planet!

I wish I could end this with a sentence about how I had to cut this off because I wanted to go visit, and sit and talk with him for a while... But I can't... Pappa lost his life to cancer when I was around 4 or 5... His chair still sits in my Nanny's house... Rubber ball he squeezed for theripy still stored in the arm of it, where he kept it... I might not have known Papa long, or well, but I knew him long enough and well enough to know he had one of the warmest personalities I've even encountered... And to doubt that I'll encounter anyone even remotely like him... And that out of the grand figures I've ever known I feel that we were the closest... That I miss him more than some people might think is possible...And that I'm greatefull to have even known him at all... 1