This one's a little sad & personal....

April 11th is a special day to my boyfriend. Unfortunately, not all special days are aligned with a good memory.

When my boyfriend was very young, his father walked out on his family. His mother, baby sister and him lived with his grandparents after that. He was extremely close with his grandfather. He looked up to him, he was his role model. He was like the father he didn't have anymore. They spent countless hours doing things together. My boyfriend and his family lived with them until my boyfriend was 17. Then, they moved to a house built about half a mile down the road from his grandparents house. You can see his grandparents house standing in his mom's front yard. His grandfather had Parkinson's disease and passed away on April 11th.

I was 19 when I met my boyfriend. It was late April when I met him. While getting to know each other, we talked about how we both had our grandparents around a lot while growing up and how much they meant to us. It was something we found we had in common and something not a lot of people have ever really been able to relate to. Which might sound off but I've never met a lot of other younger people my age who had a close relationship with their grandparents.

I never met his grandfather but I know I would have liked him. His grandmother is one of the sweetest yet toughest women I've ever met in my life. She rarely mentions her late husband but when she does, I can still see the love she has for him even though he's gone. I can say he was a great man despite never having met him.

With my boyfriend, we'll have been together 5 years in late May. I'll have known him for 6 years at the end of this month. When I first met him, he couldn't talk about his grandfather without tearing up and having to stop to choke back some of the emotion that was threatening to pour out. He can talk about him just fine now but I can always tell how much he misses him when he does. I think when dealing with something like that, it just gets easier to deal with. You never stop loving them and you never really stop missing them. That's what's so hard about letting people so close to you. You know eventually, they'll be gone in some way. And it's hard to deal with that kind of pain. Even after you've accepted it and moved on, there will still be times where it hurts again.

I always do a little something special for the boyfriend on April 11th because I know he thinks about his grandfather more today than any other day. I work 11 am-close today but thankfully, he works later than I do tonight so I'll have time to get a little something put together. I already know what I will do I think but since he might read this before then, no way am I giving it away. ;)

Have a great day, y'all.