My Dear Gwenie

Gwen and her grandfather ate lunch and chatted about all the things that have happened throughout the years. Gwen told him more about Winston and his situation, and his wife Matilda and what happened with her. She had told him about how they would come in every Monday, sat at the same booth, and ordered the same thing every time, and how they were her favorite regular customers. Also how even after Matilda passed away, how Winston continued their tradition and would take the food to a homeless man that sat on the corner of the gas station curb.

Her grandfather was so proud of her. "Gwenie, you have grown up to be such a wonderful, beautiful, young lady and I am glad that you are my granddaughter!" Then her grandfather preceded to tell her about how he's been harassed by life insurance companies, old folks homes trying to get him to feel like he's an invalid and needs to move into one, and all that kind of stuff.

When lunch was over, Gwen helped clear the table and did the dishes for her grandfather even though he told her she didn't need to do them. She then decided to walk around the house looking at pictures and remembering all the things they used to do together before she moved away to try to pursue a career. There were pictures of them going to the west coast to the beaches and collecting sea shells and making beautiful sandcastles, their visit to New York and seeing the Statue of Liberty, going to Salem, Massachusetts and walking around where they held the Salem witch trials, picnics at the park, and other numerous photos of them together. As she was looking at the photos, she noticed something odd about one of the frames. She took the picture off the wall, and a letter fell on the floor. Bending over to pick it us, Gwen noticed it was addressed to her in her grandfathers handwriting.

"My Dear Gwenie,

I hope this letter finds you in the best of moods and spirits. By the time you are reading this, I am most likely dead, unless you notice the frame and take the picture off the wall where I hid this letter because I know how smart and observant and smart you are. This letter is let you know of what I have left behind for you when I die. I have saved up over five hundred thousand dollars for you to live comfortably for the rest of your life, granted you don't spend it all in place! Hahaha! Their is also a family heirloom that I hope to give you before I die. If by chance that I die before you get it from me, it is in your grandmothers jewelry box. It is an emerald necklace with blue diamonds worth a quarter of a million dollars. Please keep that part a secret because i don't want any of our family members trying to take it from you. You are a bright and wonderful young lady and I wanted to make sure you are well taken care of. I love you so much my dear Gwenie, and I hope this news will cheer you up!

Your loving Grandfather,

Ernie Patton"

"WOW!" She thought. "He really had this all figured out!" She fooled up the paper and put it back behind the frame and back up on the wall so the other family members that came to visit wouldn't notice it. In other words, she put it back better than it was. She went to her grandfather and asked him abut the letter, the money, and the family heirloom, and why he left her all that money. "Because you are the most humble and responsible member of this family and everyone else would just blow it all and not save it all up for emergencies." "Is that why you live such a modest life Grandpa?" She asked. "Well, kind of." He replied. "I live a modest life because of all the money I have in this house and that necklace your late grandmother has, so my house doesn't get broken into and things stolen. Plus, I don't need any of our family moochers asking my for money." Makes since. He's a very wise and honest man.