TOTW - 202

If you could be any single person for one day, who would it be and why?

Out of all the people that are or have been in my life, and have influenced me the most, my grandpa has made the biggest impact and so I would like to be my grandfather for a day.

The reasons why are many. I don't know where to begin. He was always very poor growing up, and began to work at a very early age. After he got married, he would work a lot to not only support his wife (my grandmother) but also the 10 children that followed. My mom would often tell me that he would wake up very early (4-5AM) to go fishing so he could gain some more money to support his family. He would come home exhausted to work some more since he was also a carpenter. He would eat dinner with his kids and spend time with them, no matter how tired he was.

The memories I have of him are wonderful. He was the nicest person I knew and he would always wait until I came home from school to eat dinner with me. He taught me some carpentry and after lunch (in Peru, dinner is the heaviest meal of the day eaten around 1-3PM and lunch the lightest around 5-6PM) we would take all our quails and parakeets inside for the night and cover them so they could sleep. Then, we would go outside - he would watch me rollerblade while talking to someone from the neighborhood. After that, we always watched Zorro and The Discovery Channel until it was time for bed. Sometimes, we would sneak off to the corner store to eat some candy or a bag of chips, always in secret. I never told anyone about it because he made me promise (since he couldn't eat any of those things).

When I came here to live with my parents, he cried. He kept my picture on his nightstand and I tried calling as often as I could but he began to loose his hearing. They would tell me to yell so he could hear, but out of respect for him, I couldn't. Until he passed away, my relatives tell me he always asked about me, even after he got Alzheimer's. He always remembered me; maybe not as all grown up but as his little granddaughter.

So, I'd be him for a day because he was kind and sweet. He always had time for his kids and grandkids. He worked hard everyday fishing and doing carpentry so he could build a huge house for his family and he, in all the years I spent with him, became my role model. He became another father for me, so much that I always called him "Papa Maximo." He was an amazing man, father, and grandfather.

I'd want to be him for a day so I could feel what he felt when he spent his time with his family and friends; to feel what he felt when he woke up in the morning to go fishing and came home to build a chair, desk....anything with wood that someone had given him an order for. I would feel what he felt when he began to get sick and couldn't do the things he loved to do so much. And finally, I'd feel what he felt when all he wanted to do was rest and we wouldn't let him because each of us wanted a little more time with him.

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