When I was a child, I acted as a child does, I spoke as a child does… erm, I called my grandpa “Boompa.” I think it is because he’s the kind of man who takes up a decent amount of space and is loud, he has a habit of speaking from his diaphragm when getting points across and always has the right song to sing.
He’s getting old. If we’re lucky we will all get old, but watching the man who was one of the largest influences on my life, the man who taught me through who he was what it really means to be a man — the ups, the downs, the sacrifices and the victories — get old is hard.
In his handling of it he is still teaching me, though it isn’t a lesson I feel very prepared to learn. Don’t leave me yet Boompa.
