As some of you might remember, I lost my dad in 2019 to cancer. It was something we had advanced warning about, and in the time when he still could sit down at his computer, he churned out several small stories.
Several of these were for and about his grandson - my firstborn. He passed just a couple of months after my boy's first birthday, and since then I've had these stories tucked away in a little box.
I read them when he first wrote them, but after it was simply too hard. So they've sat in a box.
Recently, my son has been asking about "Grandpa up in heaven" a lot. Asking if I miss him, and saying he misses him. I'm not sure he remembers my dad very well, but I appreciate the sentiment. Maybe he does. I don't pretend to know how good a kids memory is from 1 to 5 years old.
Either way, as we've walked to and from daycare and school over the last two weeks it's nearly a daily request that I tell him and his sister stories about Grandpa - which I'm more than happy to share. He was a really cool dude, and he did a lot in his lifetime, so there's a lot to tell... and I eventually got to the topic of his love of stories. He was part of Toastmasters for decades, and could give a speech with a skill that few other I've met can match. He was a masterful storyteller and entertainer... and that got me thinking about the stories I've had sitting in a box.
I busted one out last night, and read it to the kids. I've had plans to get someone to illustrate one of them for a while just so that I can get a "proper" book that the kids can enjoy, but even without illustrations they enjoyed it. There are several more, and while it's somewhat hard to read them, I'm happy that I'm finally at a place where it's not impossible to do so.
