My Father, Lieutenant Colonel Wayne Raab Essay - 1294 Words

My Light My grandfather, Lieutenant Colonel Wayne Raab, served in the US Air Force for 27 years. He married the love of his life, Marie Raab, on November 12, 1961. They had one child together, my mom. After my grandpa retired from the Air Force he worked at a paper making company in Sumter, South Carolina. Instead of having flowers in the middle of the dining room table there would be a beer bottle full of Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce. He would put that sauce on everything, he called it his â€Å"magic juice†. My grandparents had a fig tree in their backyard that my grandpa would give a splash of his â€Å"magic juice† to everyday because he said it gives the figs a little extra flavor when they are ripe. He brewed his own beer out of a shed in his backyard. And in 2010 he was diagnosed with Parkinson s Disease. I was only 12 years old when we first found out. My parents didn t really know how to tell me because they thought I was too young and wouldn t be able to understand. They did not want to scare me since I was so close with my grandpa. My grandpa was always the person I went to when I was feeling down because he was always happy and had a joke for every situation. My brother and I would visit every summer, for two weeks, and we would constantly go out and explore Columbia with him. We would go to the pool, hiking, the park, even going to the grocery store was always an adventure with him. There was never a dull moment when he was around, until we started seeing the devastating