Page created by: Andrew Serrano

My grandfather, Helman, was a second father figure to me from the day I was born. For the first three years of my life my parents and I lived with my grandparents. At that time my parents were young, still in college and the jobs they were at had hours that changed weekly. Also at that time my grandfather worked shift work at Eastman Kodak, and was often around to watch me when my parents were either at work or school.

When I was three my grandparents purchased a home one mile away, and were still around to take care of me daily. I have been told many stories of how as an infant I would light up when I saw his face, and as I learned to talk he would speak silly little sounds to me, encouraging me as an infant to speak them back. As the story goes, one day he went out to the store and I (as an infant) was standing on the couch, looking out the window, crying "tata" until he came back. The name stuck, and for the rest of his life he was always "Tata" to me. The name grew, and my parents, and later my friends, would call him "Tata."

He retired when I was very young, and would watch me over summer vacation while my parents and grandmother worked. He was very much a father figure to me. He took me to all my little league games, taught me how to swim in the pool in his backyard, took me on vacations, took me to minor league baseball games, and would even pick me up from high school every day. When I look back on growing up, he was there for every memorable event.

When I was still in high school, either in junior or senior year, he shared his diagnosis of Parkinson's disease with the family. Up until then I had no idea what that disease was, and for the first couple of years he was still the same. Slowly, though, I could see the strong grandpa I knew changing and becoming weaker with a noticeable tremble. I saw the struggles, as well as the pain this brought on both him and our family.

His struggle with Parkinson's ended on April 14, 2007, two weeks after his 80th birthday on April 1st. I am still saddened that he's not with us physically, not a day goes by I don't miss him, but I am doing my best to make sure my children know the great man their great-grandfather was. I am blessed for the 27 years I got to spend with him.