Growing up for the first 5 1/2 years of my life, I had no paternal family. My parents split up while my mom was pregnant with me, and my father and his family in no way, stayed in contact with my mom or I.
My mom raised me as a single mother with the help of her parents and younger brother. My grandfather, Filder Lloyd Johnson, was the father I never had. He treated me like his best friend and his own daughter at the same time. My mom always says that the relationship I had with her father, exactly mirrors the relationship she had with her father.
He would play legos with me, he would watch tv with me. Every morning, after we moved in to my grandparents house, Fil and I would watch The Price is Right and Family Feud, and at night we'd watch Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. This was our ritual. Even I was only about 9 when we moved in, I as convinced I knew how to cook and bake and other miscellaneous things. So I would go in the kitchen and concoct some random semi edible thing and ask my grandpa to try it, and he did ! Every time!
My grandfather was honestly my favorite person. I remember sometimes it would be late on a night when he didn't have to work, and we'd both start to fallin' asleep watching television, and he'd poke up his head and go 'Lenelle, no sleepin'.", then fall back asleep. I even have a picture of him wearing my PINK River Cats baseball cap, cheesing like no bodies business.
Just like there's picture of my mommy as a little girl being used as a fish ruler. My grandfather loved to fish, and whenever he'd come home, he would compare the size of the fish to the size of his baby girl. It's incredibly adorable!!My life with my grandfather was amazing, even after my father came back thinking he was just going to swoop in and be "Super Dad". My grandpa was always the REAL man in my life.... Until March 11th of 2006.
My grandpa, my friend, my companion, the war veteran, the devoted father, was in a fatal car accident after having a brain aneurism. I blamed myself for years for his. You see, every night while I was getting ready for bed, he was getting ready for work. I would give him a hug and a kiss in the kitchen and say, "Hurry back grampa! We can't miss The Price is Right.", but this time .. This time I didn't. Subconsciously I knew, he wasn't coming back, so I didn't say it. The day I found out he had passes I locked myself in the bathroom and cried for hours. And to this day there's a song that I can't sing without crying, So far away by Avenged Sevenfold.
I wrote him a song this year titled Heaven, which I revised in to a poem for a Facebook note. It's definately been hard not having him around but, I know we'll see each other again.
Happy Father's Day , Grandpa <3
http://www.facebook.com/notes/lenelle-johnson/heaven-i-miss-you-3/397157696963003
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7ry4cx6HfY
-Elle ♫
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