See Things As Though You Will Never See Them Again.

My mother’s parents divorced when she was very young, her father, her real father, was my Pawl Pawl Terry.  However, Pawl Pawl Terry didn’t raise my mom like a real father.  He was a very busy, hard working construction worker, had very little patience, and did not have his priorities in line.  This caused a unfilled gap in my mother’s life when she was very young, a gap that was attempted to be filled by her stepfather, her father, my Papawl.  A stern, loving, and very humorous fisherman, Papawl loved children as much as he loved his wife, fish, and cars.  Papawl was there for my mother when she had no father.  He cared for her, clothed her, put her through school, and eventually filled the gap that formed in her heart.  This caused her real father to become a stranger in my eyes.  Throughout my childhood I never realized who my Pawl Pawl Terry really was.  On occasion, I would mistakenly call him Uncle Terry or Mr. Terry.  Later did I find out that this made him realize that the gap that he formed was much wider than he thought.  Over the years, I slowly started to see my Pawl Pawl Terry, but not as much as my beloved Papawl.  From searching for pecans in the backyard, eating pomegranate seeds, and fishing, my adventures with Papawl would never compare to the awkward family events I experienced with Mr. Terry.  It wasn’t until I was twelve years, and after my Papawl died, that I started seeing the true side of my Pawl Pawl.  He began to coach my baseball team, he came to our house to visit, and he slowly was starting to fill the gap he formed.  I started to see my real grandfather who he really was.  This experience went on for two years, but I didn’t realize it, I took for granted, and began to fade away from my Pawl Pawl after the second season of baseball.  Then, Pawl Pawl Terry died unexpectedly of a heart attack, two weeks before baseball season. 

This experience showed me that not only do things not last forever, but the way you see someone won’t either.  I saw my real grandfather as just another family member and sometimes even a family friend.  My whole perspective of him changed in the end of his life and I only began to see the man I wanted to see for a short time, and the only thing that made me realize it was his death.  This made me lead to this conclusion.

Take in everything you experience, see, feel, taste, love, cherish, meet, or want, because there is a high possibility that you may never get to experience it again.