The ways Zade inspires me

By Sammy Tweedy

My grandfather Peter Miller, Zade as I knew him, grew up very poor in Chicago. He joked that he couldn’t even afford a middle name. As a child he sometimes slept on trains by himself because the state had separated him from his mother, which also rendered him homeless. Amazingly, he seemed to hold no resentment for this. He told us beautiful, human stories about the police who evicted him. He kept these memories close. He never forgot the small sum of change that a police officer handed him when he noticed there were no toys in the home he was evicting them from, or the hot dogs, soda, and dollar bills that a young bartender snuck to him and his mother when he noticed their hunger.

He was capable of drawing light from darkness. And he loved who he loved in spite of any obstacles the universe put between him and those people. To me, Zade, Peter Miller, will always exemplify courage, dignity, and determination. Until his final day, Zade was determined to make this world safer and more kind for those he loved. I love you, Zade. Thank you for being an exemplary man.