Constant Presence

When I was a child I used to joke with my favorite aunt because non of us had grandparents. I had my mother's side grandfather and I loved him dearly but he died when I was 9. My grandmother (his wife) was never very affectionated and since she lived in the other side of the country I would rarely see her anyways. On my father's side my grandmother was all the oppossite. She would play with me and tell me the most funny stories but then diabetes got the best of her and she even forgot the name of my sisters. She would remember my name until the day she died though. Her husband (my so called grandfather) never cared for me or my sisters. We were just a disspointment for him, we were "just women" and he expected the fisrt child of his first child to be a man.
My aunt Olga would tell me that we should be called "the ones without Grandparents".
Many years later I met a man that adopted me as his own granddaughter and he is constntly in my mind. I can hear his voice in other people's voice, his face in other people's faces. It's like I'm being constantly reminded that he was here and what he meant to me. Now I'm listening to old songs he told me he would sing while travelling around the country as a hobo when he was 15 years old. I miss him. I'll always will.