A Year Without Grandpa

It's hard to believe it's been a year since Grandpa left us. Sometimes it seems like it was just last week. I still miss him so much and have not yet been able to get used to going over to Grandma's house and not seeing him in his chair in the corner. Every time I take a photo of flowers, I wish that he was here to enjoy it with me. Grandma's garden just doesn't look the same without Grandpa's loving care.

I realized that I never did get around to writing up an entry about how wonderful and special he was. But it's so hard to decide what to focus on. He was a great man and lived many wonderful years and there are so many things to say about him.

He loved his family very much. He especially loved his wife. He loved her long before she was willing to love him and he waited patiently for her to be ready to marry him. According to my mom and her siblings, he was an especially loving father. They rarely had babysitters because he always wanted the whole bunch of them with him. As his children grew up, got married and started having children of their own, he dreamed of somehow getting everyone into houses on his street so that all his kids and grandkids would be in one central location with him right in the center. He loved having us all together.

He was a fishing and hunting man. I have vague memories of sitting out on the small boat with him, waiting and waiting for a fish to finally take my bait and allow my grandpa to help me pull it in. I hated having to touch the fish, which he thought was terribly funny. But I loved it when he would cook those scaly creatures up with bread crumbs and lemon juice. Grandpa's fish was probably one of my very favorite meals ever. Followed rather closely by his biscuits and gravy, which I also remember eating at a young age.

Grandpa preferred to wear flannel shirts all the time. He had a whole bunch of them. Many of them were ones that I picked out for him for Christmas. As much as I love Christmas shopping, my very favorite part was when I would go to the men's department and locate their flannel shirts and spend great amounts of time trying to decide what color and style would look best on my grandfather that particular year. Every year he knew he'd be getting one from me, every year he would be very happy to get it, and every year he would be sure to wear it the next time I saw him.

There's so many stories I could share, so much I could say about him, but I don't think I'd ever be able to find the right number of words. Instead, I think I'll share a video we made for his memorial service last year. It shows so well the grandpa I remember, the one who loved his family, loved his dogs, loved his home, and loved his life.