People sometimes asked what it was like growing up with a grandfather instead of parents. For me, it was simply my life. It was the only life I knew.
Every morning he packed my lunch. Every single day, tucked under the sandwich, there was a handwritten note. He did that from kindergarten all the way through middle school, when I finally told him it embarrassed me and asked him to stop.
He taught himself to braid hair by watching videos online. He practiced on the back of the living room couch until he could manage two clean, even braids without losing his place.
He sat in the audience at every school play. Every concert. Every parent meeting. And he always clapped louder than anyone else in the room.
He was not just my grandfather. He was every role in my life, all at once.
We were not perfect, of course. He burned dinner sometimes. I forgot my chores. We argued about curfews the way any family does. But we worked. We always worked.
When I got nervous before school dances, he would push the kitchen chairs aside and hold out his hand.
“Come on, kiddo,” he would say. “Everyone should know how to dance.”
We would spin around the kitchen floor until I was laughing too hard to feel nervous anymore.
He always ended those evenings the same way.
“When your prom comes,” he would say with a grin, “I’ll be the most handsome date there.”
I always believed him.
The Day Everything Shifted
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