(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.