On November 26, 2014, I posted a photo of my Grandma.
One that I didn’t even know I took on April 4, 2010.
The next day was Thanksgiving. We had just got done eating Thanksgiving dinner and I decided to pull up the photo on my phone to show my Grandpa since he had never saw the photo before.
I showed him my phone, he adjusted his glasses, and looked at the screen. After a couple seconds, he realized who the photo was of and looked at my Mom said said “That’s mama!” with a big smile on his face. He asked when I took it, and I told him. He continued to smile, and that was that.
After seeing his reaction to the photo, as a Christmas gift, I decided to get the photo printed as an 8 x 12 canvas for my Grandpa to hang on the wall in his living room.
Fast forward…
After dinner on Christmas Day, we all open our “Secret Santa” gifts. But, before that, some people had purchased gifts specifically to give to my Grandpa. One of those people was me, obviously.
I was already taking photos of him opening his presents, so there was no way I wasn’t going to continue taking photos of him while he opened my gift, no matter the reaction that came out of him.
As you can imagine, I was expecting to see a nice big smile again because the only time I have ever seen my Grandpa cry was when my Grandma died.
He started to unwrap the canvas with the front turned away from him, which was good, because he would then have to turn the canvas all the way around to see what it was after he fully unwrapped it.
The initial viewing of the canvas is exactly what I had anticipated. A nice big smile!!!!
You can also see my Mother crying as soon as he turned the canvas around to look at it in the first photo.
The joy and happiness that the photo brought to my Grandpa soon turned to tears of happiness and sadness combined.
Not only do I have the photo of my Grandma that I found in my photo archives, I now have these photos that I captured of my Grandpa opening the canvas print of the photo of my Grandma that I found in my photo archive!
Not a day goes by that I don’t think about my grandparents that have passed away.
My Grandpa on my Mother’s side is the only one I have left.
Enjoy every moment you have with your friends and family!