Day 105

Day 105: This is a photograph of my maternal grandfather William Thomas P, known to everyone as "Red", when he was a young boy as the mascot of the local Hollinger baseball club. Gumpo P, as I knew him, was a gentle giant: tall, commanding presence, very loud voice when he wanted to (like when he was cheering me on at my ringette games or when I was very little he would raise my arm and shout "CHAMP!!" when I would finish my soft boiled egg at breakfast), and a staunch sense of right and wrong. We lost him in 2002, but more than 12 years later I still find myself using him as a sort of a yardstick when I'm not sure what to do. "If a jobs worth doing, it's worth doing well" was one of his mantras. "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything" was another. He wasn't perfect by any means, he had his faults for sure, but he remains a powerful figure in my life. I was able to spend some one-on-one time with him once when I was in my final year of high school. I interviewed him for a project I was doing on family history, and though it wasn't long, I learned so much in that brief visit. I learned about his life growing up as a young boy and how little they had (they used an empty piano box as their family dinner table), how he met Grammy (spied her at a community dance and monopolized her time most of the night). I heard a little about his war service, how he and a couple friends were caught behind enemy lines once and survived on nothing but eating raw onions for three days. He wasn't perfect, but I admired him so. And I loved him. Today's happy on this day of remembrance is for my war veteran, chairman of the board, amazing Gumpo P. I always stand a little taller when people say, "Oh, you're Red's granddaughter". Yes, yes I am. #365happydays

A photo posted by @kaileyjane82 on Nov 11, 2014 at 5:54pm PST