I’ve learned so much about not only my grandfather, but my entire family while working on this project.  It was hard to figure out a happy ending though.

Uncle Jim’s managed our family’s store for almost 40 years now, but he’s talking about retiring soon.  He may have to sell the store because none of his children are interested in taking over the business.  None of my other cousins are interested in running the store, either.

Uncle Jim says it doesn’t matter if the store isn’t passed on to the next generation because we’ve all moved on to other things.  I never really understood why he said that until Joe Ghiz won the provincial election a couple of days ago.

It was strange to see our family and our neighbours gathered around Uncle Jim’s black-and-white TV to watch news instead of a hockey game, but it was just as exciting.  Everyone cheered all night long, especially after Joe Ghiz was declared premier.

Last week, Joe Ghiz said how proud he was to be a Lebanese-Canadian on Prince Edward Island.  I think everybody in our family felt the same way that night.  Mom said she wished Grandpa and Grandma could have lived to see it.  She knew they would have been proud, too.

That’s when I knew even if the store would no longer be a part of our family, our family would always be an important part of Prince Edward Island.  Joe Ghiz may be the first Island premier of non-European descent, but he probably won’t be the last…

Sara