Last words

Today as I sat listening to the playful rhetoric of My grandfathers last words I was brought to tears. Most of the relatives gathered here remembered the cynical drunkenness of a man who was a cynical drunk; however, I remember the words he spoke to me at the end of terminal road as he insisted I take from him the money he offered, "son," he said, "I've been a real son-of-a-bitch as your grandpa. I wish I could make everything up to you, but I feel I don't have time to. Take this money and don't make the mistakes I made. Take care of yourself." He gave me a hug, got into his truck and was never seen alive by family again. Nothing else he had ever done mattered, he was sober, coherent, and honest, for the first time in my life I caught a glimpse of my grandpa as a real man. That's how I remember him, that too is how I wish to be remembered. What his last words were were the summation of his life what he gave me in that moment was far more than the hundred dollar bill that was tucked away into oblivion, he gave to me the wealth of having hugged for the first time in my life my grandfather. I was eighteen and he was gone, murdered beneath the railroad trestle, beaten to death by savage teenagers getting their kicks.