Grandpa.

"Oh yeah," came the comforting sound of Grandpa's voice, rolling across the furniture in the room and resonating off the walls before his words settled peacefully not only in my ears, but in the very center of my soul as well. Despite the fact that age has allowed his voice to waver a little, it still has its depth. Not only deep vocally, when Grandpa talks, his words mean something.

"On the day your grandma and I were to be married," Grandpa continued, "my army unit was called out on the field. My commanding officer woke me up in advance and told me to get out of there! I had a wedding to get to. So I showed up at your grandma's door six hours before we were to be married!"

I leaned in to hear better as his voice invoked a sense of something so far away, yet so close to his heart.

Ya know, when Grandpa tells stories, you're not just listening to a story: you are transported back into the place where the stories happened. To put it into more philosophical terms, the listener escapes the rusty chains chronos into the ever-present kairos. Simply calling this experience "story-telling" is far too much an understatement. His words aren't merely words. The sound of his voice alone is greater than music.

From my grandparents first year and a half spent traveling throughout Europe while my grandpa was in the army, to the frigid yet beautiful Upper Peninsula winters: this isn't just his life he's talking about, this is part of mine. My heart grew out of this old, wrinkly man. I don't know what I would do without him.

Hmm... These are the times I never want to forget.