Grandpa

The people closest to me know why I chose to name my blog Singin' in the Rain but I thought I would share the reason with anyone else who is reading this. For one, it is my favorite movie. I think I was about 7 or 8 the first time I watched it, and I truly believed that one day I was going to dance with Gene Kelly.

The reason Singin' in the Rain is my favorite movie is because my Grandpa showed it to me along with countless other musicals and old mystery movies and just plain old movies. You see, for about 8 years my Grandpa would come over on the weekends to stay with my older brother and I when my parents were at work. There were a lot of boys in our neighborhood for my brother to play with but he didn't want his baby sister tagging along so I spent many a Saturday and Sunday hanging out with Grandpa. Grandpa wasn't exactly sure how to entertain a 7 year old girl, so he taught me about the things that he found entertaining: movies and gin rummy. We would play gin rummy for hours and hours and when we weren't doing that we were watching a movie. He would tell me all about the actors and actresses in each film and if they were in any other film that he enjoyed, well that was the one he would bring over the following week. With my Grandpa I discovered my love of cinema and theater. And I'm pretty good at gin rummy too.

My Grandpa died almost a year ago and there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about him. Sometimes these thoughts make me smile and sometimes they make me a cry a little, but I think that's just part of the process. I was very lucky in that, in the last weeks of his life, I was able to spend a lot of time with him and tell him how much he meant to me. He died in my parent's home surrounded by his children and grandchildren and it was a beautiful experience.

I now have several things that belonged to Grandpa in my house including the VHS tape of Singin' in the Rain that he showed me so many years ago. Whenever I see it I smile and say to myself "Love you, Grandpa."