He was one of my first friends and my first role model. We lost him last year due to lung cancer. Through the journey of us trying to get him better he was so calm and accepting. I am the man I am today because of my grandfather James Gaddey
My grandfather had a rough life. Growing up he was emotionally and physically abused by his parents. Yet he didn’t hate them for it. He always told me that hating someone was not worth the negativity it brings to yourself. Growing up he was raised in Chicago, IL. Until his passing last year he still owned his parent’s home in Chicago. He didn’t live there though. He kept it looking nice, but refused to live in it. He told me the house brought up a lot of the negative memories. Up until he got sick he
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We found out that he had a disease related to alcoholism. Korsakoff syndrome was the name of it. Basically what happens is you start start losing your memories and get really aggressive seizures. Watching that was really hard, probably the worse thing I have ever seen. He fought it really hard and tried his hardest to keep moving forward. This went on all the way into November and every week he just started getting worse and worse. Yet he always tried to look happy whenever family came by. He didn’t want to show the pain he was in. He accepted the fact he was going to die. He found his peace with it and decided to turn back to God. After thirty something years he realized that was the answer. One thing he taught me was to keep fighting not for others but for yourself. The last conversation I had with my grandfather was the day he died. My mother texted me during school and told me the doctor believed he wasn’t going to make it through the day. She came and signed me out so I could sit with him. He apologized for not taking me back to Kentucky Lake like he promised to do many times. He told me one day we’ll go again. About an hour later he