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Tuesday, September 04, 2007

In Memory of Grandpa

Twenty years ago today, my grandfather passed away. It was a sad time for the whole family, but he'd been sick - in the hospital - for a month, and by the end we knew it was inevitable.

He was the first of my grandparents to die.

But when I had time to reflect on that summer I found that God had been at work in my life in ways I hadn't realized.

There were little things - like the fact that I read two books that summer that dealt with death of grandparents. I didn't read these with any anticipation of my grandfather's death, but they prepared me by letting me see how others dealt with this loss.

Another thing that summer was that I had to go to physical therapy for my knee. This seems completely unrelated, but I went as an outpatient at the hospital. While there I saw many older people, who were having physical therapy as a result of strokes or other ailments. I got used to seeing older people in hospitals. Later when my grandfather was admitted to the hospital and we went to visit him, although I didn't like seeing him looking frail and connected to tubes and monitors - I was not surprised or shocked by it. One of my younger brothers was, and found it very difficult to stay in the hospital room. My experience at physical therapy had helped prepare me for it.

On my last visit to him, before he fell into a coma, he had a respirator tube in and was unable to speak. So, I did all the talking. I didn't know what to say - so I prayed for help. And to this day I don't regret a single thing I said or wish I had said anything extra.

I learned a lot from my Irish-German grandfather. And I wish he could have lived to meet his great-grandchildren, but I try to pass on to them things I learned from him, like how to see all the colors in the sky, and how to enjoy a good story. If he were still alive he'd be turning 101 in a couple of weeks.

Rest in peace, Grandpa

5 comments:

Sweetness and Light said...

What a beautiful tribute and story of your dear grandfather. May the sould of the faithfully departed, through the mercy of God rest in peace. Thanks for sharing!

EC Gefroh said...

Very beautiful tribute Chris!

Anonymous said...

Christine,

My name really isn't Anonymous, but it may as well be because I can never remember my user name or password to all of these sites and I never seem to have them handy. I have ones with just letters, ones with just numbers and some with both, so you can see that it gets confusing figuring out who you are in the cyber world. Today I wll be Anonymous.

Your grandfather was a loving and kind man. He loved his grandchildren and was profoundly proud of each of you. He would have felt the same way about his great grandchildren and so would your grandmother.

I forgot that today is the anniversary of his death. I'm glad that we have a family historian that keeps track of such things. That is really a very nice tribute to him and I'm sure he is looking down on us all and agrees.

Thanks and all my love,

Dad

christine M said...

Thanks Dad, and everyone for your kind words.

Vivian Mahoney said...

What a touching tribute. Thank you for sharing this.