My Opa - by Katy McCarthy (Age 14)

I didn’t know my Opa for very long, but while I did know him, he was pretty great. He was always full of philosophical wisdom, such as, poop happens. Upon the news of his death, I had a bit of a conversation with myself, about everything I had ever done or ever known about him. It was the little things that were my Opa’s way of showing love that I kept coming back to.

Bedtime snack, our time, where we could sit and chat or not; algebra homework, where we would argue about the value of x and whether the answer to problem 36a was 42 or 24. His valiant attempts to teach me to sail, while I privately thought it was as boring as sin. His presence was always felt, even if he didn’t say anything, but when he said something, you better listen up, and on the whole, he was usually right. I remember every year at Hanukah we would get together to make something, the girls made one thing and the boys another. He would always give each kid a fair chance, even though some of us weren’t sure which end of a hammer was up. I tell you all of this as my own personal experiences with my Opa, as I knew very little about his childhood up until recently.

One very distinct memory was when he and my Mommom went on their trip around America. In our little apartment in Pittsford, I tracked their travels carefully on a U.S map as they sent me postcards. My Opa liked to travel, I think. And he gave really good hugs, great big belly hugs that squished you like a stress ball. I was the only one who could make him laugh by tickling his beard. He liked to travel and sail and build things, and a thousand other things I knew, but never really thought about He was smart and kind and couldn’t hold a grudge if he wanted to. His grandchildren, myself included, could do no wrong. We would take rides up the heavy side lair in his tractor, and pick raspberries. Even in the dead of winter, he was never cold. Even though I only got to know my Opa for 14 years, if you stretched out each moment with him, it would go on forever.

All of these things may not seem like much, but there are what made my Opa Opa, and it’s what I’ve got to hold onto of him, and while I’ll remember the stories and the pictures and the facts; this is what is going to stick. The things that made him Opa.