Becoming a Parent

One of the weirdest things that I think and believe and that probably not a lot of people think about is that I want to be a really good grandfather. It is actually very simple to explain but very complicated to understand. I had an AMAZING grandfather that passed away when I was about to turn 13 years old, and in that relatively short amount of time he became my hero. Yeah... cops and firefighters were cool but he was way cooler period. And the entire reason why was because of how good he was at telling me stories of his life, it was as if I was there with him. I remember at first I would ask him questions about the things that I was curious about in his stories, and as time went on he could predict what I would ask him and would cover all the details that I wanted to hear in his stories. He became a better storyteller and I became the happiest audience to his monologues there was...

Every single night he would end the story with a quote, and he was old so there was no googling his way out of his lack of quotes, he just knew them all... Of course at some point he probably repeated one or two quotes, but I still I was as amazed as the first time he had said it to me. He knew eventually he would run out of quotes, of smart well crafted stories, it's not an easy thing to do. Yet he still dealt with it day by day, story by story. He taught me everything I knew and motivated me in the process to become the best version of me, which at that moment was to start a band and play music at parties and record a song... About how the best stories are the ones you never forget.

Was he perfect? Flawless? A living breathing example of how to behave in each and every different moment? NO. But that old, successful, happy, self-contained, bossy man was exactly what I needed to believe in myself and not see the glass half empty of a kid who was so short, his nickname in school was flee, that was so baby-faced that had not given his first kiss after everyone was talking about making out. He taught me that you do not drown for jumping into water and swimming, you drown if you stay in the water and let yourself sink... He taught me that no matter if you think you are right or wrong, you will always be right... To prove myself wrong when I was down, and to hold a mental copy of the moments when I felt most happy.

The fastest way to sadness is loneliness, because even when loneliness is a beautiful place to visit and find peace, it is a horrible place to live in and get lost in. Thanks to his idea of me following my dream of music, I met amazing people, crazy countries, bumped into Daniel Arce, found a passion for people, for writing, for running... and eventually found myself in different countries, programs.

But the true strength of my grandad's stories lied outside my accomplishments... Him and his endless stories and quotes got me through the rough days, the sad days, the rainy afternoons, the early mornings when I did not want to get up, or the long nights when I could not sleep. He has not been here for over a decade and what once was sadness now is gratitude, because I realized the best parenting does not necessarily come from the ones who are always there, but rather from the ones that will stick to your life long after they're gone.