dear grandpa,

thank you for your recent e-mail full of writings and memoir chapters. i love reading them. it was so good to hear your voice the other day although i know you are going through utter hell. my words of comfort fail me at this hour of your life and so i thought i could give you some cheer by giving you, in no particular order, my top ten favorite things about you:

1. your laugh. it's a giddy yet manly laugh and has been the perfect punctuation to the many silly, silly jokes that you have shared with me over the years.

2. your vocabulary. so many people comment on how well spoken i am and how many unusual words i use. i credit you with this.

3. waching golf. you taught me about 'the great white shark' and you also taught me the clever phrase, "fiddle dee dee" which i now know was really meant to be an expletive.

4. canoeing. sitting with you on the water of the st. john in the green canoe learning to paddle is one of my fondest childhood memories.

5. rides in the golf cart. you let me drive that thing into the ground with every available grandchild precariously dangling from it's frame. i've never had a finer joy ride!

6. playing horseshoes. whether it was a leaner or a ringer, it was you who gave me the meaningful phrase, "close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades". it took me years to realize the truth in this statement.

7. taking naps. i was always a bit perplexed as to why you would take a nap each day-in the middle of the day-without fail. now, with my own business and young one running me ragged, i totally get it.

8. storytelling. you are the best storyteller in the world. no grandchild in the history of the world has ever been so lucky to hear such fabulous anecdotes.

9. grandma. you always looked at her with such kindness and you seemed to appreciate her grace and her sense of humor. thank you for marrying her and for giving me so many examples of compromise and patience in a relationship.

10. hankerchief hats. i have this amazing picture of you kicked back in a chair on the deck of some freighter, legs crossed and hands folded behind your capped head. you looked like you didn't have a care in the world.

these are my favorite parts of knowing you and loving you. it is an absolute pleasure.

big love,

kate