In life we tend to share a tight knit bond with somebody or something. That somebody or thing may be either or of your parents, a sibling, a friend or even one of your pets. You share such a connection with someone that even the strongest forces could not break this bond. You may get mad at each other, fight ignore one another but the affection and respect for one another that even if that somebody is physically not present, that bond will never disappear. A bond is simply something that cannot be broken. I shared this bond with my grandfather. His name was John Coates, a small Scottish man by appearance but filled with such knowledge and life experiences that made him tower over most. He came from the small “pourer” part of Scotland, Dundee. As he would say “most saw us as peasants but those who saw us as that kind were full of rubbish! “Although it seemed as he tended to be humorous there, he was not. He was very stern/stubborn and meant what he said each time, positive or negative you knew he was serious. He was the type of person to give his opinion but not like to hear anyone else’s. He may have come off as rude to most but that was not his intentions. He just felt as if he was filled with a wide variety of knowledge that the opinion he was giving was right. To me though he would listen to my opinion unlike anyone else. Even when I was young he would give an opinion but if I were to disagree he would listen and sometimes agree. Sure maybe you think he was just doing that because who wants to argue with their grandson but I could see it in his eyes that really did take my opinion to heart. Sadly my grandfather passed away 6 years ago but he helped turn me into who I am today.

As I grew older my grandfather would help me stone the pathway to the man I am today. He started me off young, by working me to the bone. He would give me an endless list of things to do around my grandmother and his house that weren’t easy for a young boy. Cleaning the whole place top to bottom to the point you could eat off any surface. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to clean he was teaching me. Some may think (even my parents) the way in which he worked me would be cruel but it has made me have a strong work ethic that I am able to obtain still to this day. He pushed me when I was down because he knew if I was able to crawl that there was still enough energy left in me to keep moving forward. He was right, I could keep going even when I thought I couldn’t. It turned me into a person who was not afraid to take on new tasks, and when tasks are thrown at me to take them with the out most concentration and hard work to complete them. He always emphasized on “when the going gets tough keep on going.” This trait is resilience and I feel like I have an astounding amount of it with in me.
Now with being so resilient you may be able to burst through any assignment thrown at you but you cannot do that without having any patience. Patience is hard for the average person to understand, we all tend to throw are hands up when we don’t understand something or even before we attempt to understand something. My grandfather made sure that in life you need to have a high tolerance of patience. He showed an astounding amount of patience when teaching me things. As a matter of fact he taught me how to shoot a basketball. I would shoot and be so far from even reaching the hoop. He would grab the ball and show me how to position every muscle and bone in my body in order to get that crisp shot off and in the end get the ball inside the hoop. See with patience comes perfection, they go hand