My Grandfather – A Commemorative Speech

Some people leave this earth without their names being immortalized in history books, but that does not mean that they are forgotten. They are remembered by their friends and family. And some special people are remembered by people they hardly knew. My grandfather was one of those people.
My grandfather was a special man. What made him special? Why will he be remembered by not only friends and family but also by small acquaintances? It was because he was a very selfless and compassionate man. He put everyone before himself in every situation. This was a man who worked three jobs at a time to support his wife and six children. He struggled most of his life to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. But he did so with a positive attitude and a smile on his face.
He didn’t just speak of compassion. Often he would let his children’s friends stay with them when their parents couldn’t keep them in their own home for various reasons. And though he wasn’t a rich man, he provided them with a roof over their head and food on the table, the same as he would do his own family. These children will remember the man who took them in when they had nowhere else to go.
And he did not just speak of courage. He was enlisted in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Often he would treat me to stories of when he saved fellow shipmates from being thrown overboard in the middle of a typhoon. And when he pulled into the port of Nagasaki and saw the devastation that he described as “the only thing there was black ash as far as the eye could see.” The soldiers he saved will remember the man who saved their lives.
He also proved his courage, in a more personal way, to his family. Late in the year of 2010, he lost his voice due to a large mass in his throat. At the same time, the doctors had also found two aneurisms in the artery close to