Dear Diary, It has indeed been a while since I've written within your pages. I've taken this time to gather my thoughts and adventures, perhaps not even for writing within you, but in another tale for another decade of my life. Today has been an interesting one, certainly. When I woke, my mother was in my room, stating that she was going to go to the local Habitat For Humanity. When she goes there, I often like to go with her. There are so many neat and interesting things that can be found. It's a good place to look for things that spark one's interest - or to discover new interests. We arrived there shortly after I woke up. That time in the day, it's scarcely shopped, so we were two of only a mere six or seven people. It started out when I went to the books. I was skimming through the new isles they put up, with various romance novels and the like, when suddenly my eyes fell on one particular book. "Bad Girls" by Cynthia Voigt. Three years prior, almost, I had come across a book titled "Bad, Badder, Baddest" by the same author. I had been looking for the first of the two books since that time, and when I found it today, I almost danced with joy. After that, grasping the book to my chest as if it were the very breath in my lungs, I meandered over to the paintings and such. Within moments, my young eyes fell upon a print of a rose lying in the sand, the waves of the ocean turned pink and orange in reflection of the glorious sunset beyond it. Almost instantly, my eyes filled with tears, as I was taken away in memory of my grandfather, who passed three years ago. I remembered the times at the beach with him; how he'd fly his kites there, and was so careful about who touched them. In another flash of time and space, I recalled the night my father came back from his funeral, holding a red rose in his hand. I so distinctly remember him saying, "This is from Poppa." I remembered running my fingers along the flag that daddy brought with him, as well. Folded in a perfect triangle. Symmetrical. I remembered wondering how a flag that was folded in to a symmetrical geometric shape could spawn so many tears. I remembered, before going to sleep that night, reading the last card my grandfather sent to me the Christmas prior his death. It was read over and over again, until the words were a blur and I didn't even understand them anymore. All while clutching the red rose tightly in my shaking hands. The first two days after Poppa's funeral, I didn't feel the grief. I couldn't even cry. Perhaps this was due to shock, or the lack of comprehension that he was gone. On the third day, the floodgates broke, and all of the pain and sorrow of losing him took over. I couldn't hold back the emotion, and found myself sitting in the corner of my bed, holding his picture while rocking back and forth and crying. Since then, I have not been able to see a picture of a beach, or a lighthouse, or a kite, or a bright red rose without getting choked up and having to suppress the tears. Even now, as I sit and write this in these beloved pages, I find myself blurry-eyed. When I got home, after purchasing the picture of the rose on the beach, I read all 277 pages of "Bad Girls" and then, after dinner, asked permission to take a walk. I needed to clear my head and get some air. So, I walked. Down the road, up the other road, took a left, down the third road and across another property and back home again. All the while, walking precisely down the middle of the road - much as I do in life. As I walked, I thought about my grandfather. Wondering, if he were here, would he walk with me so I wouldn't be alone? Wondering, since he wasn't there, was he still walking with me? In those moments, I can never recall a time where I've wanted so much to run into his arms and cry. To tell him how much I missed him, hearing his voice, calling him, seeing him, knowing he was there even though we were apart. When I returned home, I took the time to study the picture once again. This time, however, it made me laugh and cry at the same time. Perhaps I needed a reminder that in grief, there is much beauty to be found in thinking of those you miss. Perhaps, he's thinking of me as much as I'm thinking of him. -Summer, age 16