My name is Ella Dapore. I'm 17 and I'm a senior at Centerville High School. I live with my mom, Lee, my dad, Jeff and I have a twenty four year old sister, Zoe, who's a grad student at Miami University.
I think a beautiful. Beauty really is not what's on the surface in the least. It's what lives in your heart.
When I was eight or nine years old, my grandpa wanted to have a special day with me. He always loved spending time with me and my sister because we were his only grandbabies. So he spoiled us. When it came to Christmas, he would dress up as Santa, and I for one hundred percent believed it. He would take us Christmas dress shopping so we would pick out our favorite dress, our favorite shoes, hair, nails, jewelry, whatever we wanted. We got it. There was no budget ever. My grandpa definitely made a point of making holiday special.
My grandpa did everything with us, went everywhere with us. I had a soccer game, he was there before I even was. I can think of countless times I was late to a soccer game and he was already waiting for me with the rest of the parents.
My grandpa was a University of Dayton Flyers fanatic for over 60 years. He knew I loved basketball, so he took me to a game and he took me up into the suite where we ate breakfast and talked with a lot of the workers that he was close with. And we watched the basketball players warm up. They all knew him by his first name and knew who I was before I even walked in the building.
My story is about a dream I had after my grandpa died, and I wish I would have asked him more questions. That was all I wanted was one last word from him. But little did I know, I was can I get that in a dream.
In my dream, I saw my grandpa walking through the desert. At the time I was a model and we were out shooting in the desert and we had taken a break. And I was just walking around and I came across him and I was like, Hi, Grandpa. And he was like, Ella, it's been a while. And I was like, Yeah, how's where've you been? He was like, oh, you know, just doing my thing. And I was like, OK.
And we just walked around and talked and just caught up, and I remember he started to get very tired and he wanted to sit down and I was like, OK, that's fine. So I sat down next to him, and he said, well. It's time for me to go. And he said, I love you and it's going to be OK.
Don't take these people that are in your life for granted. Because there's going to come a day when you don't get to see them ever again. And you don't want to have to live with yourself knowing that you didn't make the effort to call. That's all your family wants - is you and your love. Tell your family you love them.
Ella Dapore is a student at Centerville High School. Special thanks to Tricia Rapoch, teacher for the Communication Arts Program at Centerville High School. Learn more at the school's website: http://www.centerville.k12.oh.us/CHS. Dayton Youth Radio is supported by the Virginia W. Kettering Foundation, the Ohio Arts Council and the CenterPoint Energy Foundation.
This story was created at the Eichelberger Center for Community Voices at WYSO.