My Hero
Thursday October 8th 2015, started out like any other day. I woke up, went to class, talked with my friends, and so on. It wasn’t until I was on my way to lunch my cousin came up to me and informed me that my great grandpa, Hyrum Watkins Kershaw, had died earlier that day. I didn’t cry upon hearing that he was dead. I simply wasn’t sad. I am not saying that I didn’t love my grandpa but he was to the age were he was no longer happy. He weighed only 67 pounds and couldn’t really move much without help anymore. He had lived along liv having died at 93 years old. He was also lonely having his loving wife die 18 years earlier. It was simply time for him to go. However it wasn’t until he died that I was able to learn his life story and realized …show more content…
He graduated high school second in his class. In his personal history he writes, “Following graduation in may 1940, I realized it was completely up to me to make the most of what life had to offer. With that same small tattered suitcase I ran away with, I began hitchhiking up and down the valley looking for work.” On may 18, 1942 he enlisted in the Army Air Corps as a flying cadet. He continued to be a pilot though all of World War II. He flew a total of 86 missions in P-47 Thunderbolt which he later named after my grandmother Launa Lee. He received many awards for the missions he flew including a silver star the third highest award in the military. In March 1953 he moved his small family to Blackfoot Idaho and started his own veterinary practice were him and his wife Millie spent the rest of their …show more content…
But the one that truly makes him my hero is that he realized life is what you make it, and he taught me that important lesson. You can’t expect life to be handed to you on a silver platter, because if you do you will be sorely disappointed. Life is hard and it is unfair. Everyone has different trials and challenges and some have it easier but no matter what it is up to you to make life what you want. It is no one else’s fault if life doesn’t turn out for you but yours. My grandfather had every reason to be angry and to say that world owed him something, but he didn’t. Instead he realized his blessings and was very thankful for what had been given to him. He turned his life around by having the courage to runaway and the perservance to work hard to make his life better. And because he taught me that important lesson is why my great grandpa, Hyrum Watkins Kershaw, is my
Thursday October 8th 2015, started out like any other day. I woke up, went to class, talked with my friends, and so on. It wasn’t until I was on my way to lunch my cousin came up to me and informed me that my great grandpa, Hyrum Watkins Kershaw, had died earlier that day. I didn’t cry upon hearing that he was dead. I simply wasn’t sad. I am not saying that I didn’t love my grandpa but he was to the age were he was no longer happy. He weighed only 67 pounds and couldn’t really move much without help anymore. He had lived along liv having died at 93 years old. He was also lonely having his loving wife die 18 years earlier. It was simply time for him to go. However it wasn’t until he died that I was able to learn his life story and realized …show more content…
He graduated high school second in his class. In his personal history he writes, “Following graduation in may 1940, I realized it was completely up to me to make the most of what life had to offer. With that same small tattered suitcase I ran away with, I began hitchhiking up and down the valley looking for work.” On may 18, 1942 he enlisted in the Army Air Corps as a flying cadet. He continued to be a pilot though all of World War II. He flew a total of 86 missions in P-47 Thunderbolt which he later named after my grandmother Launa Lee. He received many awards for the missions he flew including a silver star the third highest award in the military. In March 1953 he moved his small family to Blackfoot Idaho and started his own veterinary practice were him and his wife Millie spent the rest of their …show more content…
But the one that truly makes him my hero is that he realized life is what you make it, and he taught me that important lesson. You can’t expect life to be handed to you on a silver platter, because if you do you will be sorely disappointed. Life is hard and it is unfair. Everyone has different trials and challenges and some have it easier but no matter what it is up to you to make life what you want. It is no one else’s fault if life doesn’t turn out for you but yours. My grandfather had every reason to be angry and to say that world owed him something, but he didn’t. Instead he realized his blessings and was very thankful for what had been given to him. He turned his life around by having the courage to runaway and the perservance to work hard to make his life better. And because he taught me that important lesson is why my great grandpa, Hyrum Watkins Kershaw, is my