Tom Henderson

In one hand he carried a screwdriver, and in the other a harmonica. His face was full of sweat that his red bandana didn’t catch, but he still had a smile on his face.

My Grandpa perseveres through anything. He has Parkinson's so it is hard for him to move around sometimes, but that doesn’t stop him from doing what he can at our house. Over the summer we bought a 10’ by 10’ pool, but when we finally brought it home we had no idea how to build it. First we had to blow it up. After that, we filled it with the cool water from our hose. Then came the hard part, the filter, which took way longer than it was supposed to. First, it wouldn’t turn on, so my Grandpa stayed outside in all of the mosquitoes that night, trying to get it to turn on. Then, we didn’t know how much of the liquid it used was needed in the pool for it to work correctly, so he spent the day outside making sure the filter wouldn’t get clogged up. Then we had a terrible storm, and a bunch of dirt and leaves got in the pool and it took my grandpa two and a half hours to get it all out of the pool with a handheld net. Two years ago, my grandparents took me to Disneyland, because my Grandpa had a business trip there. If you’ve ever been in the park you know it’s pretty big. For the two days we were there, we went to as much of the park as we could.

Not only does my Grandpa persevere through anything he cares a lot about people, too. He does all sorts of things for me and my grandma and the rest of the people at my house. Whenever my Grandpa goes grocery shopping he brings my Grandma home flowers. He makes sure they are a bunch of different colors and says he just wants to buy them to make her happy. Another time is when we moved into their house last year, I was suppose to keep the same gray walls that had been there when my great-grandparents lived there, but instead he painted the whole room in my favorite shade of purple. Once when I was little, he heard me watching T.V. in the living room at about 6:30 in the morning. Since my mom and Grandma were gone at the time, he got up and started making spaghetti. I asked what he was doing and he told me that he was making breakfast. In a little while, he and I were making spaghetti with red sauce and garlic bread for breakfast at 6:45 A.M on a Saturday.

Even though my Grandpa doesn’t have a lot of time, he makes self-sacrifices with his time to help me and my family all the time. In the winter when it was snowing a lot my Grandpa goes out and shovels the snow. One morning, after a blizzard, he had to go to work early because they were having trouble at the company where he works. He got up around 4:30 A.M. to get there. When he saw how bad the snow was he decided that he was going to brush off all of the cars and started shoveling the snow off of the tires. It turns out if he didn’t do that most of us would have been late because the snow would’ve stopped us from getting out. He says he wasn’t late but I’m pretty sure he was. Last year, my grandpa drove me to Jazz band. One day I wasn’t going to go because he wasn’t feeling well, he got up anyways, woke me up, and drove me there on time.

Even though he sacrifices a lot of his time, he always finds a way to make people laugh. On Christmas, when we were all tired from the day, he took one of my presents, a stuffed Eeyore, and made him talk to my sister. They were having a heated conversation about anything from the weather to what she thought about the economy, and all she did was mumble off random sounds.

My Grandpa preservers through anythings and he is caring, makes self sacrifices, and makes people laugh. He has inspired me to make the most of every day because, “We might not be here the next day to grumble about how horrible our lives are.”