Having let this field lay fallow for the last decade I've decided it's time for a reboot as a letter to my grandson, a time capsule for us to get acquanited in the future.
By the time I was born all my grandparents had died, so I never knew any of them. I remember, when I was about your age as I write this, my friend talking about his Nana. I had no idea who that could be and had to get a definition from him, or maybe my Mom. I never knew them, or really even knew of them when I was young, so I didn't really miss them. You can't really miss someone you never knew.
My Dad died when I was thirteen and my older brother was 15. I was very sad at the time because he was a loving father, had a great sense of humor, and he enjoyed music even more than I realized. But what I find I missed most, as time went on, was that I didn't get to know him as an adult. It's when we become adults that we get to know our elders on the level of peers. It's less parent teaching child to become a human being and more parent and grown child getting to know each other as friends and equals. That's what I would like to have had with my Dad and what I hope to do through what I write here with you.
I was just shy of 65 when you were born and I hope we'll get some time together to talk man to man about whatever comes up to talk about. The odds don't favor us having a lot of time for that so I hope to give us, a bit one sidedly, a chance to have something resembling those conversations.