Being compared to someone most of your life is weird, but what’s worse is when you are compared to someone you don’t even remember.

Recently given my grandfather’s stamp collection by my dad for my 24th birthday; I didn’t expect to be piecing together a story of someone I couldn’t remember. Let alone a story that made things less confusing than before.

I was told a lot growing up that I remind them of my grandfather, he liked Shakespeare, classic novels, and art, and had a special connection to cats.

I was told he would be proud of both my brother and me for what we have accomplished. Being told this still makes me sad for not being able to tell him myself.

Back to this stamp collection, it was in a box with thousands of them being loose after being cut off of envelopes. It made me sad in a way, he was so busy that he couldn’t indulge in this hobby. Furthermore, I found things that I was drawn to, I had a tiny stamp collection of my own and to my surprise, my grandfather had collected some of the same stamps I had collected. This made me realize that maybe my dad wasn’t too far off with me being alike my grandfather. This revelation hit me when I found a specific stamp a: Tom Tompson Jack Pine stamp. This is not only one I had collected myself but also within my Minor, I did extensive studies of Canadian Art history.

My Grandfather and I may not be here at the same time but our stories are intersecting more than 20 years later in the most interesting of ways that continue to make me understand a little bit more about my grandfather.

For now, things make a bit more sense…sorta.