Thing 1's Essay

This is an essay just written by my daughter for her Literacy class. I just want to keep it forever ... her facts are not all spot on, but it still went straight to my heart.

I know a change my mom had to go through and still is. When she was almost fifteen her dad died of diabetes. It has been hard on her, my aunt, uncle and grandma. It has also had an affect on me. M mom's entire family says I'm a lot like my grandpa because he was an engineer. They also say that because I'm smart like he was.

I've lived my entire life wondering what he was like. My mom said that by the time he was forty, every single hair on his head was snow white. I once saw a picture of him in his mid-forties, it was true about his hair!

My grandpa died of diabetes because there wasn't the treatment tey have now. The old treatment was very harsh and hard to go through. Most of the time it was only 50% that the treatment would do anything good for my grandpa. He was looking at the glass half empty for his future.

This story connects to the story "Stretching Ourselves" because there is no cure for Diabetes or Cerebral Palsey. However there are treatments for both. My family will never forget m grandpa. Especially my mom.

My mom was the closest to my grandpa.She would spend the most time with him because my uncle was 21 and my aunt was 19 and my grandma had to go to work. My mom was the first to be married and have kids. She always told me what a great grandpa he could have been. Now through the rest of my life I'll wonder, "What was my grandpa like?"

Anyhow ... I won't worry about clarifying much except the 50% thing mentioned in the 3rd paragraph ... I'm not sure what that was about, but that's how my girl works - she likes to include numbers and figures, whether they are valid or not. Now we are just working on helping her learn how to verify her "facts" first.

And as for the hair, here's a little proof - he really was snow white before he turned 40!

Here are my mom and non-gray dad on their wedding day, my dad was in his mid-20's:

Here is a semi-gray dad, he was in his mid-30's:

And here he is in his full gray glory - in his mid-40's:

I guess I echo her thoughts and feelings on this, how I wish they knew him, how I wish Bert even had ever met him, how I wonder what he would have been like with my kids. But that is how things go and these are the experiences that mold our lives. And, someday we will all embrace together.