He’s been burned, shot and almost drowned. He has lived through the Second World War, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. He has had to watch many close family members die. He has experienced hardship and loss, including extreme poverty and hunger. Yet somehow, at 91 years old, my grandpa remains a positive influence on those around him.

My grandpa did not become a big, important businessman, and he is not a doctor, lawyer, or astronaut, but just a regular person who made the best out of what life handed him. 

And life gave him a lot. He grew up without a father, and at eight years old, he lost his mom. His stepfather took him and his brother under his wing, but he still lived in poverty on the streets of St. Louis during the Great Depression. He experienced walking five days in the cold, without food. As a teenager, he lost a brother, who was his best friend. Death followed him into adulthood when his young wife died giving birth to twins. He lost a baby daughter, as well.

He was shot in the leg, almost fell to his death off of a bridge and nearly drowned in a pool. He got burned on more than 70 percent of his body in a construction fire and spent a year in and out of the hospital undergoing many painful surgeries. Through this and many other obstacles, he still managed to persevere. But how? How did he keep going when so much was stacked against him?

“You must not give up. You have to use what you are dealt in life and accept it. It is just like a card game,” he told me in an interview. 

I admire my grandpa for his perseverance and his own optimism in life. He has shown me how to have a positive outlook when times get hard, even when it seems like there is no way to push through.

My grandpa is just a normal person who lives an everyday, quiet life, and this is what makes him special. He didn’t want glory, but just wanted to support his family. Life handed him bad cards, but he decided he had to keep playing the game.

For me, my grandpa gives me optimism when I’m down. When I think about all that he’s been through, it makes me feel strong enough to be able to accomplish a task. He has given me the confidence to continue to grow and take on my obstacles head-first. When my life seems hard, I remember what he went through. When life throws something in your way, you have to choose to move forward. You have to pause, think about the situation or obstacle, and you must find a way to get past it, otherwise, you will be stuck for a long time.

My grandpa makes me find the good parts in life and focus on them in the moment. He has taught me not to dwell on something that happened in the past, because it cannot be changed. You need to have a positive outlook and be open-minded. My grandpa has been through so much within his lifetime, but he is grounded, funny and an all-around decent human. He thinks about how others’ lives would turn out if he would have given up. He didn’t just think about himself, he thought about his wife, kids, siblings and grandkids. He kept pushing forward, even when life threw everything it could at him. 

I am so thankful I get to call him my grandpa. If he had given up, or one thing would have been different, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t have someone to show me how to have a positive outlook on life, to keep being resilient when it would feel like I cannot. You must continue in life, so you can look back and realize all you have made it through in the end. 

Grandpa believes everything happens for a reason, whether it feels like you deserve it or not, and feels a person should never stop moving forward. Through him, I’ve learned I can choose to accept what happens, or I can wish for a different life that will not come.

In the 16 years I've known my grandpa, he has always shown optimism. Throughout his entire life, he has struggled to survive, and he has taught not only me to be optimistic, but he has also taught everyone else around him this, as well. 

His words of wisdom are to “appreciate everything that you have when you have it, because you never know if it will be there the next day, or when it will all be gone.”