The Hero I Lost

Tonight I cried for the first time in a long time. I have no clue what caused me to think about someone that I miss so very much. As I laid in bed, I just started to think about a man who means so much to me. I got out of bed and came and sat in front of the computer and looked at pictures, and the next thing I knew I was crying my eyes out. I do not think I have ever fully allowed myself to believe that he is gone.

It is summer and I am young boy on a farm in Wisconsin. This is a place that I loved very much and have so many memories of. Playing in the yard of the farm house with a wire frame of a chair, a plastic truck, and plastic peddle tractor. When I got bored of those toys, I would go to the tobacco shed and play with the tractors and anything else I could find to use my imagination with. I loved being there so much, and I miss it even more. What I miss even more is the strong and even stubborn farmer that ran that farm, my grandfather.

I remember watching him drive the tractor through the fields. I can feel myself sitting on his lap while he lets me put my hands on the steering wheel of the 4x4 tractor, that he wouldn't let anyone else drive, as we go through the fields. I can see the country side as we drove down the road with me in the back of the pickup. I can even hear the TV blasting in the living room as he sleeps in his recliner. I remember family get-to-togethers, as everyone stood and sat around the kitchen table laughing and talking about past and present.

What makes me cry most though, is that those memories are surrounded with guilt and regret. As I got older and he got sicker, I took less and less time to call and visit him. I should have taken so much more time for him and taken advantage of the time I had left with him. I should have asked him so many more questions and listened to so many more stories. I was so caught up with my own life, that I put aside another.

He is a hero to me. He was a fighter to the end and always worked hard in life. I wish he could have been at my wedding. I pray that I can bring a male in to this world to carry the Erickson name and honor his Great-Grandfather. My Father and I are the only males to carry the Erickson name after my Grandfather, and I know he would have been so proud to see my some day son. I hope he would be proud of me today. I love him so very much.