Hello Hubski,

I have had a rough couple of months. I went through tough breakup and I just got rejected from the PhD program of my choice. This combined with a few other things has left me in kind of a depressed state.

Thankfully though, I have my granddad. My granddad is kind of like a best friend/father figure for me. He is always there for me when I need him, he takes an interest in everything I do, and he likes just going out and talking with me. But two weeks ago, he point blank asked me: "Have you learned anything from me?!"

This caught me off guard, but in retrospect I'm surprised he never asked it before. During our relationship I have sort of helped bring him into the modern world and I have also significantly altered his worldview through conversations about evolution, space, history, etc. But he fairly wanted to know what (if anything) someone with all the world's knowledge at his fingertips could have learned from someone who grew up in impoverished rural Ireland with almost no education.

I told him that learning deeply about his life has taught me to always put my own disappointment and failures into perspective. No matter how hard I have it, what my granddad went through and overcame, is far worse than anything I could even imagine.

As I mentioned above, my granddad grew up in a tiny rural village in Ireland. He was born in 1933, and thankfully missed being conscripted into either of the 20th centuries world wars. The first 10 years of his life, from what he tells me, were pleasant and memorable (except for his family being almost always close to starvation) (thankfully poverty is relative).

Either way, his life took a turn for the worst when his father caught him flirting with a local school girl at 11. His older brother had impregnated (and consequently "embarrassed" the family) a year ago, and his father didn't want to risk being embarrassed again, so he sent my granddad to a juvenile hall.

This event forever changed his life.

In that juvenile hall the worst of possible things happened to him between the ages of 11-13. He was literally forced to eat porridge with cockroaches in it, got to bathe once a year, were violently beaten regularly, and other unspeakable things. I once asked him if he ever considered suicide in that juvenile hall, and he responded that he would have if he had known what suicide was. To make matters worse, his mother died from a heart attack when he was in that hall. His father came to visit him (the only time he did) and told him that she had died of a "broken heart" because of him.

When he got out of the hall he had a choice: go back home to live with his father, or run away. He chose to run away.

At 13 he took a boat to England. He had grown up Catholic and had been taught his whole life that the English (and all Protestants) had horns on their head. When he got off the boat he was shocked to find that none of them did.

He walked to Birmingham and spent the first year in England as a homeless beggar. One afternoon he ran into a group of boys that were planning to rob a convenience store. From his account he said they had told him they were just going to buy some bread. My granddad had no clue what was going on, and apparently the boys ran off and left him holding a loaf of bread. The police just saw my granddad with bread in the street and ended up putting him in jail for a year.

However, jail was preferable to the streets. When he got out at 15 he purposefully stole a car to be put back in jail. He got out at 17.

Apparently while he was in the second time he had a choice to learn how to weld and other random trades I am ignorant of and know nothing about. He tried to find a job, but at the time the English were discriminatory against the Irish. Everywhere he went there were signs that said "Irish Need Not Apply."

However, he was persistent. For an entire year he went to a automobile company called British Layland looking for a job. Eventually the owner of the shop noticed his persistence and asked why he came back to the company everyday looking for work. He said it was one of the only businesses that didn't turn him away because of his accent. Luckily, the owner of his company was Irish. So he had an in. He was put to work the next day.

Long story short - my granddad eventually became general manager of British Layland before moving to Canada in the 1960s.

I have learned a great deal from my granddad's story. He overcame incredible odds. While I spent my formative years in school learning about academic subjects; he had spent his in jail and on the streets. He is an incredibly well-adjusted and successful man considering what he had to go through growing up. And it is a constant reminder that no matter how bad I feel I have it, it is something I can and will overcome. His story teaches me that persistence, determination, and hard work do pay off in the end.

Anyway, I thought I should share his story. It helps me. And maybe it would be an inspiration to one of you as well.

Thanks for reading!