My grandpa died today.
He wasn’t in some awful nursing home connected to machines, it wasn’t in his sleep, he wasn’t in pain.
For the past several years he’s been working at a place called the Kennedy Center in his small town of Amery, Wisconsin. Every time I’d see him he’d show me new photos from renovating this and fixing up that. He wasn’t boastful about it, but you could tell he took great pride in making it a better place.
He had a heart attack, from what I gathered after my parents called this afternoon he was active as usual, working on the lawn at the Center, and then he died.
You know when someone starts getting up there in the years, that every time you see them could be the last. That was actually one of the main reasons I decided to lug my camera along with me this past Christmas.
I had captured the footage and started cutting it down when my hard drive stopped working. It kind of lost my attention for a couple months. Maybe that was good thing, now I can finish it as more of a tribute.
He was still so active even up to the end. I’m glad I didn’t drop the ball and leave my camera at home.
It’s odd when something ends. Every frame of video that will ever be captured of this man has been captured. Every photo, taken. No matter what. Makes all those frames and photos so much more precious now. Makes me glad I took the time to document the people in my life.
I know that no matter where he is now, he’s not sitting back and taking a break. That’s why my grandpa is awesome.
This is one of my favorite vidblogs with him it in, from Christmas 2003.
1 month ago