Grandpa,

What I would have said was that I love you. What I would have said was how much I appreciate that you were always there for me. There are so many things I would have said, but I just didn’t know how, or when.

The last time I talked to you, you were dressed in white with beeping machines all around you. You looked so weak and scared. And at the time what I didn’t realize was that you weren’t going to come home.

The morning I found out you had passed, all these emotions were running through my head. I felt like I had been holding on to a burning rope for so long, and I finally couldn’t take it anymore, so I let go. When I did, there were scars, scars that will never fade away.

When I think about you, a memory flashes into mind of those summer afternoons when I would come into the house dripping with pool water, to get a drink or whatever else my little mind had to do. You would be sitting in your red chair ready to ask, “How’s the water?” (like you always did) and I would say, “Good” just out of habit. But I can’t tell you how much it meant to me, because I never got the chance. It never really crossed my mind that I should actually sit down and talk to you, because soon you wouldn’t be sitting in your red chair anymore.

When I think about you, I see your crazy brown hair always combed back, and your Harry Potter glasses! I see a tall, strong man who always cracks jokes! When I think about you, I simply see you.

There were so many things I wanted to say to you when you were in the hospital. I wanted to give you a big hug and never let you go, but I couldn’t. No words can explain how much of a hole appears in my chest when I think about all the things I didn’t say to you. I guess now you know some of them, huh?

What I’ve been trying to say is that I love you, and that you’re not forgotten. All this time I have been regretting not saying all the things I could’ve. But now I know I can, and I did. I hope you now know…that you will always be my red chair memory.

Hannah, age 13