The Big blue Balloon

This is a picture of SGS on his 1st Christmas 1999. He is with his great-grantparents, my SM and SSF. After you read the story look back at Grampa Bernie, you can see why he looks sad.

This weekend SGS was at a birthday party for a close friend-as he was leaving they gave him a blue balloon with a gift bag. He held on to it carefully-he is after all 10.5!

We went to Mass, and on the way home, I mentioned to be sure to hang onto his balloon as we got out of the car-he quickly said he wanted to give it to Grampa-I interrupted him to tell him how nice that was and he and grandpa could play catch after supper in the living room. He carefully explained to me that no, he wanted to give it to Grandpa Bernie-who was my SM's husband, my SStepfather. He passed away in 2002 when SGS was three years old. What an impact he must have made for this little guy to still talk about him.

When SGS was just about a month old, SBernie held him and sang a Norwegian lullaby to him. I just loved it so much that I asked him to sing it again, and he did not know what I was talking about-by this time, his Alzheimer's Disease had already started to rob him of his true self.

I have made it my mission to pass onto my children the importance and memory of the people in their lives, whether still here or not.

I know my SAunt reads this blog-and I want her to know that we all loved her husband SUncle Jack so much that we are always talking about him and his stories-SS is teaching SGS to say bull**** just like SUncle Jack did for him. And, his kindness to our entire family and his joy for life is such an important part of who we are today.

We all owe that to our kids to root them in who they are and where they came from.

A few months ago SGS was talking about remembering SGrandpa Bernie drawing with him, and that if he was still alive he could teach him how to draw now. We then discussed the artists in the family, Grandpa Bernie did many paintings, I have a SAunt who has a great artists eye and has done paintings in the past, her daughter was also blessed with this skill, and has her own Graphic Design Business-thank you very much! I also have some Snieces and a Snephew who have that ability too. No need to ask-I did not make that list. So SGS said if he wanted to learn to be an artist he could ask them to teach him.

As the balloon discussion continued I reminded him about his father's grandmother that SGS was very close to-she passed away about 18 months ago. Then we discussed all his relatives that were together in heaven-so this is what he said when he released the balloon "This is for all my relatives in Heaven, enjoy this balloon, and I love you and wish you a Merry Christmas-this is a Christmas gift for you".