Creative writing: Describe a relative

Last Friday's writing assignment:

In your writing composition book, describe one of your relatives (aunt, grandparent, cousin…) Describe that person’s physical appearance, personality traits, sad or funny stories from their life, and convey through these descriptions either how much people like this person, avoid this person, think this person is funny, crabby, etc. so that the reader can really feel this person. You can use a situation to describe the person.

Alexandra's description:

I was 2 years old when my paternal grandfather came from Ukraine to visit us. I don’t remember much about him being here, but I’ve heard quite a few stories about it. And I know we used to always go on walks through Ellison Park. Grandpa would always carry me some of the way. Once when he put me down, I wanted him to keep carrying me I refused to go on and sat on the ground until he came back to pick me up.

I really love my grandpa. He reminds me a lot of my dad. When we went to Ukraine when I was 5 years old, we stayed at my grandparents’ house. Whenever we did something bad that we weren’t allowed to do, Grandpa would yell at us, and we quickly learned what to do and not to do. His anger flared quite easily, but then he’d always come back and try to apologize at the same time defending himself, explaining to us how we’d done wrong.

At night, he’d sometimes sit with us and tell us stories about when he was a little kid. We always enjoyed those. He’d tell us about World War II, and I think it’s pretty cool how he lived through it, although he was only a little boy back then.

Another thing about Grandpa is that he always tries to show off how tough he is. He went on a 15-mile trip to try out his new bike this winter, and ended up getting sick. He won’t even try to take care of himself, so he’s not getting better either, and is still coughing. Funny thing is, he’s always telling Dad not to show off. So he realizes he shouldn’t, but does it anyway, telling others not to act the same way.

If someone told me, “Imagine your grandfather, and what do you see?”, I have to say I’d either see him smiling at me or working at something. Usually his bees. He really likes to take care of them and the honey that he gets. He always sends a lot of it home with us. He enjoys showing us children how to take the honey out of the wax. He lets us help sometime, but always finishes it up for us, saying we can’t do it as well as he, because we don’t get all the honey out.

That’s pretty much what comes to mind when I think of my grandpa. And I miss him.


Comments: She used the word always too many times, and she did not describe his physical appearance. But I liked how she used snippets of interactions between them to describe his character.