Dear Grandpa

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Dear Grandpa, Are you aware that you can still get social security income if you act now? Did you know that Capital One and Visa want to give you credit cards? Magazines offering tractor and farm equipment deals, building up on my table. There's an old farm hat in the barn on a pitchfork handle, waiting for its owner. Orchards are overgrowing, the trees with their sprouts and limbs busting. Fields in the hands of new owners, being cultivated, some by your sons. Your "closest friends" all showing up at my door to ask if you're around. Your "closest friends" showing up at my door, asking for hay, or to hunt. The sheds and barns all in need of repair, the roofs are in need of replacing. With fences to mend, equipment to fix, this farm never ceases its needing. There are tools rusting in longing of use. Cupboards and shelves full of oil. You've been gone for twenty long years, seems like no one else knows it. But never let it be said that those who truly were close, forgot what we lost. Your family still misses you dearly... I just thought that you should know it. Your grandson, Jesse.

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Curtis Johnson

Date: 10/1/2022 9:34:00 PM

Hi, Jesse. This was a joy to read. I was too young to have ever known any of my grandpas. Thanks for sharing.

Jesse Zerlaut
Date: 10/6/2022 1:40:00 AM

Thank you Curtis. I'm sorry you missed out on that opportunity. Though the best and closest bonds are those we choose to form, family or otherwise. Peace, my friend.

J Hamilton Gist

Date: 4/18/2017 8:42:00 PM

I like this one a lot! R.I.P. Grandpa!

Jesse Zerlaut
Date: 4/27/2017 1:37:00 AM

Thank you for reading. It's rather clunky and unflowing, but it means a lot to me deeply.

Debbie Duncan

Date: 3/26/2017 9:58:00 PM

Very nicely written, we always miss those we feel a connection too. I wrote one for my mom, called Lillian. I still talk to her. In my head, bet yet when I see her in my dreams.

Jesse Zerlaut
Date: 3/28/2017 10:41:00 AM

Thank you for your thoughts, Debbie. I still have dreams about my grandfather.. even after 20+ years. In every one of them.. he's a bus driver picking me up at a public city stop. Odd as we're from the country and he was a farmer.

Becca Teagan

Date: 10/27/2016 10:19:00 PM

oh my gosh. Wow. This is kind of a slam... I had no idea these things still happened even so long after someone has passed. So frustrating, I'm sure. Very awesome poem Jess... I really love that final line. Well done.

Jesse Zerlaut
Date: 11/4/2016 2:11:00 AM

sorry, I should reiterate by "close friends" people who either didn't know after 20 years they passed on, or people who take advantage of new owners because they think we don't know who our grandparents friends were. I lived my whole life next door to him.

Jesse Zerlaut
Date: 11/4/2016 2:09:00 AM

It still happens often, we still get phone calls as well by different companies wanting to sell things to him. But the one that stabs at me are the folks that show up at the door and take advantage of being "close friends", using it to try and hunt, or scrap metal, or bum hay.