I lost one of my best friends last week, a man who served as a father figure and example of how to live the right way.

Venancio Padilla Constantino, my grandfather, passed away at 7:30 a.m. on Feb. 5 at the age of 93.

I knelt beside his hospital bed two days before his passing and prayed that his pain would end.

Entering his 10th decade, he still had his wits, and while he occasionally winced in discomfort, he also reminisced about chasing me around his yard and jokingly asked a nurse for a rum and Coke on the rocks.

"Leave the bottle," he said, cackling while she looked at me in shock.

When I left his hospital room, it never occurred to me it would be the last time I'd see him.

He had been admitted for a stomach virus, and a young doctor assured me he'd be back home in a day or two. We clasped hands as we always did and tried to out-squeeze one another.

I told him I loved him and that I would see him soon.

"I love you, too," he said, then told me to call my mom and tell her to hurry up with the food she was bringing him.

Hospital fare wasn't cutting it.

I knew he was weaker than he had ever been, but Venancio was a fighter, a migrant laborer from Bacarra, Ilocos Norte who toiled in O'ahu's cane fields and never met a physical challenge he couldn't conquer.

Venancio played tennis into his 80s and was known for a devastating forehand that mimicked the motion of a machete slicing through a stalk of sugar cane.

A whiz with his hands, my grandfather could fix anything and scoffed at the idea of hiring anyone to do soothing he could do himself after a single trip to City Mill.

He'd been in and out of the hospital for the past several years, but each time he emerged fortified.

In recent months we talked about the future a lot.

He told me he wanted to see my sister and me continue our education and enjoy successful careers. He wanted to watch us get married and have children so he could regale them with tales of our youthful indiscretions.

He begged me to control my temper, which he apologized for passing on to me, and asked me to be nice to my mother, grandma and girlfriend.

Bemoaning his fading appearance, he said he took heart in the fact that his genes lived on.

"Good thing you look like me because your daddy is ugly," he quipped, gesturing in the direction of my father.

I am blessed to have been raised by a man who valued hard work, respect for others, and love for family.

Rest in peace Grandfather; I promise I'll live life the way you taught me.

Reach Peter Boylan at pboylan@honoluluadvertiser.com. Read his daily blog at blogs.honoluluadvertiser.com.