Grandpa Willy

(Biff being the father; sitting on the couch with two kids, a girl, 7 and a boy 5)

                “Come on Dad, tell us a story about Grandpa!”

                “YA! Come on Dad!”

Nodding my head I bundled them on my lap as I thought back about my father Willy.

               

                  “You see when I was growing Grandpa Willy was the hardest worker I’ve ever seen in my entire life. He would drive his red shinny care all over the United States to sell the next best thing. He was practically a celebrity when he came into town! As I got older and was in college Grandpa Willy had worked so much that the company didn’t know what to do with him!”

The white lie covering the story of my Father went unnoticed to the kids but it stuck in my throat as I continued,

                “So after years of work Grandpa Willy had just run out. But the one thing that Grandpa Willy never did was lie down and take defeat. Grandpa Willy worked and worked and worked to get the things that he knew would make me and you’re Uncle Hap the happiest kids around. Of course nobody’s perfect but my father didn’t settle for just anything. Grandpa Willy kept on his life dream of being a salesman and kids, he died a salesman. If you ever want to look up to someone who worked until his deathbed, you’re Grandpa Willy was a hell of a man, and a father.”

The kids looked up at me with a smile as my father’s face grew in my mind. That part was true, my father was a salesman and he died a salesman.