Eulogy

May 27, 2013 21:18

Ten years ago when my first grandparent died, I decided that I wanted to know the grandparents I still had, better than the ones I had lost. I wanted to tell them how much I needed them, and hear them say they were proud of me. Grandpa didn't say those things to us - but he showed them, every day.

He would show it by offering you one of the Scotch mints he kept in the left pocket of his flannel shirts. When he offered you one of his personal stash, you knew it would come with bits of pocket lint, but you always said yes.

All week, I've felt like I was waiting - waiting for him to walk through that door and tell me that it's not true: that I don't have to figure out my life without him. Because the truth is, as much time as I spent with him and as much as I loved him, I took him for granted. He was the foundation - that "ever-fixed mark" - holding this whole family together, always giving us somewhere to return to. He "was our North, our South, our East and West."

All my life, my grandpa had brought me little gifts from the garden, and given me anything he had that he thought I might need, but when he was in the hospital, that changed, and the man who used to dance with me on the toes of his slippers needed my help to take a drink of water. I should have known that being able to take care of him was the beginning of learning to live without him.

He never said that he was proud of me, and I never said that I needed him.

But... I think Grandpa always knew the kind of man he wanted to be, and when his body no longer let him be that man, it became our job to be strong, and to remember how lucky we have been. If every one of us came up here and recalled every good memory we had of Grandpa, they would vastly outnumber the times we saw him weak, or sick.

So, soft-boiled eggs and warm bread "soldiers," tomatoes in paper bags, feeding the ducks at Como Lake, sawdust on a flannel shirt, homemade bird feeders, a meticulous garden in bloom, the high-pitched whine of hearing aids when I went in for a hug, and a firm grip on my shoulder when I didn't know what to do with myself - these are the things I choose to remember about our Grandpa.
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