Seriously Ill Grandfather Becomes the Only One Who Needs David after His Parents’ Divorce — Story of the Day

A young boy who wants to be his new school’s running champion learns the true meaning of honor from his seriously ill grandfather.

David was 13 when his parents divorced. Things had been going badly for a long time, so in a way, it was a relief not to have to listen to his parents’ constant bitter ranting anymore.

The flip side was that his mother was moving to Arizona with a new boyfriend and didn’t want David tagging along, and his dad had been offered a job in an oil rig, so he couldn’t take him either. They ended up sending him to his grandfather, Roy, in Georgia.

David wasn’t happy about any of it. He barely knew his grandfather and had only met him two or three times in his entire life, but he had come across as a very quiet man, unlike his outgoing, temperamental mom.

Still, here he was, on the bus, on his way to some hick town in Georgia to live with some old man. David hoped the town had a decent high school and a decent track team.

If there was one thing David was good at, it was running, and he supposed some would say it was because when he ran, all his problems fell behind, and all he knew was the feel of the wind and the bellows of his lungs pumping power to his legs.

Before he knew it, the bus stopped, and there the old man was, with a straw hat in one hand and the other raised to wave at him as if he were some little kid!

“David!” his grandfather cried. “Welcome home, my boy!” And he threw a surprisingly strong arm around David’s shoulders. “Where’s your gear?” he asked. “Let’s get you home and settled!”

As it turned out, his grandfather had already handed in his transcripts at the local high school, and he was set to start the next Monday. “I took two days off work. I wanted to give you a day or two to get used to the town, and to me!” his grandfather said, smiling.

David just shrugged his shoulders. “Whatever!” he mumbled and dragged his suitcase up to the bedroom his grandfather had told him had been his mother’s and was now his.

That evening, his grandfather tried to bond with him over some pretty good lasagna and kept asking him what he liked to do...