When you choose love, you inevitably choose loss. With any relationship, the ebb and flow of time leads us to this truth. And it's sad, and it hurts, and it wounds us like nothing else can. But as I've been learning, the mistake we often make in feeling this pain from loss is in forgetting the re-life that it grants to us and (depending on your beliefs) our dead.
I didn't wake up Monday September 25th knowing I'd lose my Grandpa. Yes, he was 83 and a widower of almost two years, but he had his dear friend Karla "the dill pickle kid," family close by and close at heart, his church service as a Sealer in the Mormon faith, and a pedigree of long life that expected even another decade was in store for him. But within days I had an airline ticket and I was landing in Utah preparing a song with my cousin Megan to sing at his funeral.
As long as I can remember, my Grandpa has been a part of my life. When I was a kid, he and Grandma lived about three hours from our house. We would drive up for family reunions, Mariner’s baseball games, and rides in the wagon pulled by his lawn mower. I remember talking to him about softball when I joined little league and his days as a pitcher; I remember eating his famous secret meatballs and riding in the front seat of his classic Mustang. He would push us on a swing at his house in Washington, and when they moved to Utah, he would take us to In-N-Out where he was a proud Regular. But perhaps most of all, I remember him being there for just about every spiritual experience of my youth. He even married my husband and me.
As we got ready for the family viewing, it was amazing to see so much of my family. I couldn’t remember the last time my mom and all her siblings had been in one place, and I hadn’t seen a few of my relatives for as long as 12 years! It didn’t really set in for me that this was a funeral and not a family reunion until I saw the casket and people crying. And when they asked each family to come up and say their good-byes before they closed the casket, I wasn’t ready to say it. Then I started to cry too.
But as I looked around at all of the photos from Grandpa’s life, and saw my family hugging each other before the ceremony, I remembered things that made me smile. There were photos of graduations and proud smiles, photos from Bear Lake reunions where not only Grandpa and my cousins but my mom’s cousins had spent summer weekends with their families in Bear Lake listening to Grandpa’s “Have you ‘Ear’d about ‘Arry” bit at the talent show (thank you cousin Emily for re-enacting it at the family luncheon!) I saw scenes of Christmases in Washington as far back as 1970, my strappin’ young Grandpa in his Navy uniform as received the flag during the decommisioning of the U.S.S. Missouri. Family road trips to Old Faithful, St. Helens and other natural wonders. And the stories, new and old, kept flooding in as more people signed the guest book and told stories at the family luncheon and shook our hands and gave us hugs with the highest compliments about Grandpa. In the meeting house, there were rows upon rows full of people who had come to pay their respects at the funeral. And I kept crying, but only because I was so happy I had known and loved this wonderful, kind, patient man I called “Grandpa.”
There’s a clarity that comes from losing what you hold so dear and mourning it. Because you realize what you had and what you chose and what you loved. And it’s worth it. And that’s where new life begins. You see them in the every-day and you remember, and you smile, and you cry, and you love them even more.
I love you, Grandpa. See you later!
The cousins! :) Thanks Aunt Lauri for this shot!