Recently, my father and I had a long conversation about my grandfather. His life and his struggles.

Do you have that one person you wish you could meet but can’t?

That one person you’ve never met but feel like you know very well. You’ve heard stories about them, people tell you things that person said, you’ve seen pictures. For a lot of people, that person is a celebrity. To me, that person is my grandfather. I’ve never met him. He was long gone by the time I came around. I’ve seen six-seven pictures of him. But I feel like I know him very well.

The world lost him to Cancer. I can’t say I lost him because I’ve never met him. But I would have loved to. There are times when sharing stories about someone, you hear the person say something wrong about them. It’s never intentional. It’s just part of who he/she used to be. But I’ve never heard something like that about my grandfather. I’ve heard about his struggles, I’ve heard his jokes, I’ve heard his wisdom, I’ve heard about his sickness. But never in all those stories has anyone ever said one bad thing about him. That’s the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of him. Someone who made no mistakes. Is it weird that when I think of him, I think of superman? He raised a superman too.

A lot of my conversations with my father include stories about my grandfather. Lessons that were taught or left. One of those things was to live life with principles. To stand by what you believe is right, no matter what the circumstance. If you’ve known me for a while or read my previous blogs, you know that’s a lot similar to what I believe in. Except in my generation I’m called rebellious, not principled. It’s funny. I never met him. There were no videos of him. There was no way for him to have influenced my life on a personal level. But somehow, when I hear stories about him, I know I’m a lot like him. His behavior, his thoughts. My father would beg to differ but I know that if my grandfather was still around, he’d have been someone who would have understood me and supported me. He’d be my kind of person. Like my father is.

In life, you at times land in trouble. My grandfather has taught me that it doesn’t matter how you got there. There are only two ways  to get out of it- The Easy Way, The Right Way. Now remember, anything that comes easy is not here to stay.

He inspires me. When I hear about him, I keep trying to look for similarities. I take pride in knowing I’m a lot like him. Also because it secretly means I’m a lot like my father. I don’t know if my father knows this, but when I hear stories about his dad, I get reminded of him. I can see the day I sit my kids and my grandkids and talk to them about him like he talks about his father to me. It’s cheesy but it’s true. He’s open-minded, like my grandfather was. He’s principled and determined, hardworking and trustworthy, a fighter. He’ll do anything he can to excel at everything. Including fatherhood.

Through my difficult times they’ve helped me. One through stories and the other by just being there to tell me it’ll be fine. Some day, when I’m ready, I’ll go out into the real world. I might not become the next billionaire but thanks to the life lessons, I’ll survive. And when the going gets tough I’ll repeat my grandfather’s words like I do every time I’m in a bad situation :

“This too shall pass”