Grandpa! Don't Eat My Hamster!

Dear Grandpa Sal,

I will always remember you.  Your face was happy like the sunshine on a bright new morning, and I know I was always your favorite. "Little Lisa,” you would say.  "You are grandpa's little monkey."

Your visits were always a delightful routine of adventures that I hoped would never end.  Our day would begin with make-believe eggs cooked on my beautiful plastic kitchen followed by a good game of Jaws, which I always won.  But lunch was when you would get even. 

Remember how you would always wake me up early from my nap, "Little Lisa...Come join Grandpa for some tasty lunch."  There you would be with my hamster FooFoo between two pieces of bread ready to gobble it up!

"Stop, Grandpa! Don't eat my Hamster!" I'd yell as I grabbed you.

You would laugh so loudly I thought the house would come down!  I miss that laugh. 

You were always full of surprises! Like the time you gave me and my brother shovels to look for the buried treasure in the backyard you said pirates had left there.  I never did understand why mother got so upset when she saw all the holes in the yard?  We promised we would share with her the silver dollars we'd found!

And Candy...oh the candy you would let me have.  I can't tell you the times I remember buying gumballs and licorice with money from the Monopoly game! I wonder why it never worked unless you were there.

Oh, all the memories... from giving me five dollars every time I saw you for just one more hamster tube and all the tattered postcards I still have from your best friend Charlie the chimpanzee. "Dear Lisa, Your grandpa is working hard and wants you to know he misses you.  Love Charlie."  We put bananas out every evening for that ape on your visits and magically in the morning they were gone! How come that never happened when brother and I did it?

My last memory is the absolute best.  Even when you were sick in the hospital and it was the last time I saw you, you still had five dollars for one more hamster tube that you slipped in my hand when mother wasn't looking and you even raced me down the hall. I know now you let me win. I'm sorry the nurses scolded you.  I love you Grandpa Sal. Until we meet again...

Your little monkey,
Lisa