Real Legacies

I have had so many things floating around in my head that I wanted to blog about, but I haven't had much time lately for blogging! I just added so much crap to my facebook profile though, so I figured I could work in a blog too!

I wanted to write about my grandfather. He passed away a little over a week ago. He died of a massive heart attack, so even though he had emphysema, and had been sick for a while, it was very surprising when my mom called and told me.

PawPaw and baby Jennifer

I feel like I learned so much about my grandfather in the few days after he died. My grandfather was legally blind from birth, and became completely blind in the past few years. What I never knew though, was that he was the first blind student to attend Talladega High School. He went to school at the Alabama School for the Deaf and Blind, so when he graduated he actually got two degrees. I heard a lot of people at his funeral talking about how much of a big deal that this was, and that he was always trying to do anything to fight for the rights of handicapped persons. Not that he would have ever seen himself as "handicapped". He did anything that he wanted to do, and never let the fact that he couldn't see stop him.

MawMaw and PawPaw back in the day

Another thing that I learned was that my grandfather really loved to write. This was really cool to me because one of my favorite things to do is to journal and write short stories. He even typed up an autobiography that my uncle let me read. My uncle also had some other writings of my grandfather, kind of like journal entires. There was one that really stood out to me. My grandfather never really talked that much. He definitely was never one to try to grab the attention of the room. Now my grandmother... another story... haha. But, he talked about that in this journal entry. About how he has never seen any need in speaking unless his speech had a purpose, or that what he had to say was worth hearing. I really saw that my grandfather's lack of talking was not shyness or not caring to join the conversation, but was just him being really really humble. I never remember ever feeling that my grandfather was doing anything for his own gain, not even speaking for his own gain.