I'll Be Loving You, Aways...

Dear Grandpa,
I'm not quite sure how to write this letter. After starting it several times in my head I am still nowhere satisfied with the way it sounds. I suppose for the most part I have yet to completely comprehend your absence. But then, I'm not sure one ever really does comprehend death. It has always been an act of God that people question. Maybe you could ask him about it? Because if anything confuses me, the one thing that does not is that the faith you
had throughout your life has brought you to our heavenly father.
In the past few days I have remembered so many things about you that I had long forgotten. I remember the candy store that was just a few stores down from Grandma's, and how you used to come down and get change from the cash-register to take me to get sweets. I remember asking you serious question on those trips.
"Grandpa, why are horseradishes spicy?"
"Grandpa, why are they called horseradishes?"
"Do horses make them?"
I remember particularly the horseradish debacle because when you answered each question with "I don't know," it wasn't in an aggravated way like other peoples, but in a way that made me feel you too wanted answers to the world's horseradish questions.
I remember reading The Monster at the end of this Book, in your chair. That brown chair that was old and torn and full of history. I learned that the best way to eat cookies was with coffee in that chair. I told you the stories I made up in my head in that chair. We would sing songs together in that chair.
One thing I don't remember is you ever getting mad. I'm sure you did, anger is a natural emotion, but for some reason you never seemed to. One time when you came to pick me up from preschool and I had pinched another kid. After my teacher told you I was so afraid I was going to be in trouble, all the way home I was quiet, but you never mentioned it to me. You never told Mom or Grandma either, and I never got in trouble, even so though I never pinched anyone again.
You ate grilled cheese dipped in applesauce. An odd combination I've always thought, but still whenever I eat grilled cheese I can't help but crave a little applesauce myself. Of course I don't dunk my sandwich but it's still something I picked up from you. Like whistling; you taught me to whistle and teased me with you wiggling ears and slippery teeth and screechy – hearing – aid ears.
There are many more things that I remember about you, grape juice, stripped overalls, old spice, cowboy boots, shoe horns, and on and on and on. But the important thing is that I do remember you. And I hope that you save a place for me next to you in heaven just like you used to in your chair. I love you Grandpa, and I don't plan on ever stopping.

Love,
Your Granddaughter,
Chantelle Gemmill