Descriptive Essay About My Grandfather

Have you ever had a hero in your life, someone that is always there for you when you need them? I did, I called him "my dad." My dad was the only person that could make me laugh when I was feeling down. My dad was that person who had so much love for his family. My dad was the person who I could call and he'd always pick up. My dad was the person who would drop everything just to help me. My dad was the biggest hero in my life and to this day, still is.

Thursday July 13th, 2015. I spent that beautiful summer afternoon on my back porch with one of the best grandpas anyone could ever ask for. My grandpa, grandma, mom, dad, and I treated that Thursday like it was any other. Although it was still enjoyable, I wish we made it more special. It was the last time I would ever sit with my grandpa and create memories like we used to.

I have an abundance of grotesque, yet, barely visible memories of childhood. However, no breathtaking family trips, no unique family togetherness that taught a moral lesson, no abnormal holidays. We still ate family meals together, but most often the children and adults lived in different worlds. When I needed comforting or wanted the best of both worlds, I could turn to my Grandpa.

The first time I met him it was a hot humid day with the sun blazing down on all four of us in late september. My sister’s face was beaming proudly as she finally introduced us to her new boyfriend as he stepped around the front of his maroon truck. It was just the four of us in the large parking lot next to the quarter mile two story school that lianna and I went to. He was tall, a bit lanky but also muscular. My first impression doesn’t give him much credit to the man he is today but he gave a firm handshake and pretended not to notice when Lianna and I gave McKenna looks of approval which just added to the reasons to shoot McKenna looks of approval making her blush.

I just got back from school, and i finished my homework. It was a stormy night with loud bangs and long strike of lighting. My mom called me for dinner, so i rushed down stairs. At the table there was my brother Josh. He is 14 with dark brown hair with bright blue eyes. He was an average height for his age. Josh was very stuck up and thought he was the best and new everything, but he was a great brother. My mom was a easy going person. She had light brown wavy hair with blue eyes. She was kind of short and she always wore some type of dress. Then there was me. I was 12 at the time, about to turn 13, i was average height and had dark brown hair and almost black eyes. Now you're wondering, where's the dad?. Our dad walked out on us when i was born. It's been hard for my mom but she has always manage to keep a smile on her face.

As I sat down at my kitchen counter on Sunday night, I was texting one of my friends and I asked what they were doing, they responded by saying that they were typing up their interview. I suddenly realized that I hadn’t done my interview yet! I scrambled to my parents room to ask my dad if i could interview him for an English project. Thankfully, he groggily agreed to be interviewed. As I sat down on my parents couch across from their bed I realized that I didn’t know all about my dad’s college experiences, and I was grateful to get to know him a little bit more. My Dad is precisely the type of person that I want to be when i am older. Except I don't want to be bald, definitely not that, but besides that he has a lot of outstanding qualities that I also would like to have. He works hard, loves his family, values education and helping other people, and he did a lot of similar activities that I do today. My father’s name is Stephen Hammarstrom, he was born in Hayward California and then a bit later in his life moved to Manteca California, he currently works at Fremont Rideout.

I think the person who has had the most profound effect on my life besides my parents is my grandfather. I never realized before how much of an effect he had on my interests and goals for the future. Years ago, he used to tell me stories about historical events and experiences he had fighting in Vietnam and my great grandfather fighting in World War 2. His vivid descriptions always made it so interesting and, in some cases, more light-hearted than what actually happened. To this day he still has more stories to tell me, and never fails to captivate my interest. In doing this, he opened my eyes to my biggest interest, history, and encouraged me to pursue this interest throughout school. I feel like it would help to give a short summary of his life and how it affected me.

When I think of my Papa many things come to mind, but one of the most important is how loving he is. He is a tall man, about six feet tall and is in good shape. He has a silver-colored hair and an infectious smile. He is very joyful and loves to crack jokes with his family and friends. His real name is Tony Morton, but he is lovingly known as Papa to me as well as his 3 other grandchildren. Papa was born January 14th of 1947 in Concord, North Carolina to Paul and Della Morton. He grew up in the neighboring town of Kannapolis. Papa still lives near the same area that he was raised.

June 16th 1964, that’s the day my father was born… March 2nd 2010, that’s the day my father passed. My dad Elan Prystowsky, was the most hard working, caring, funny, awesome person in any way shape or form. Most people take death as a very sad time and as a very serious time. Well, when my father passed I was only ten and my sister was only seven, we didn’t know what cancer was, we didn’t know why he came home once a week and we didn’t know why his head was all of the sudden bald from “treatment”. For a ten year old this is a lot to process, a lot to understand, and most certainly a lot to cope with. Growing up without a father figure in the house has always been tough but everyone has to find a way to manage and a way to adapt to new things.

The image I have chosen is my grandfather blessing an excerpt from my uncle’s mural in San Antonio. The mural can be seen from the highway on the side of a laundromat. The mural is called “Insomne de Amor” and was finished in 1999, then restored in 2009. All the realistic images on the mural are of my family. When the mural was in the process of being restored, my uncle had staged photos of us taken that he then turned into graphics before they were painted on the wall. The excerpt is of my grandfather wrapping his arms around my sister and I as we look up to him. He is wearing a superman shirt and has the sun haloing around his head radiating light to the rest of the mural. When the mural unveiled to the public there was a ceremony and to end holy water was handed out so those in attendance could bless the mural. A photo was taken my grandfather choosing to bless the faces of my sister and I rather than himself. This picture was the one chosen when an article about the mural was written in the local paper, and is the first result when the mural is searched on the internet. The depiction on the mural and the photo taken at the unveiling is how I know my grandpa to be—selfless and radiating.

All movies have three parts, a beginning, middle, and end. This movie I’m going to share with you is no different, except this movie plays in my head every time I think about Papa. Even though I was so young I remember every day spent with Papa as if there is a movie reel going round and round in my head. Let me take you into this movie that I call life, so you too can experience Papa as I had.

From the moment we found out my sister was pregnant with her first my dad, a kind

My grandfather was a disorganized workaholic, a good listener, and a brave man. He was, according to one of his students, “… the Indiana Jones of linguistics.” I love that man because of what I have learned about him. I knew my grandfather when he was sick, but like many Parkinson’s patients, he had been changed by his illness, so when I knew him, he seemed more like a moving body than a person. When I was born, his sense of direction had already left, his muscles had already started to stiffen, and his coping abilities had eroded considerably.

At just over five feet tall, she was the kind of woman that you saw on the street and knew to move out of her way. Her demeanor was strict, her hands tied with thick blue veins, criss­crossing over her thin, frail fingers.

“I can’t believe that’s true!” I exclaimed, my laughter echoing through the room. My grandpa and I had been chatting on the phone for the past half an hour. You would imagine a man his age would be boring and dull. However, he was quite the joker. At least with me, since I was, of course, his favorite granddaughter.