Remembering Grandpa

It’s been almost a month since my grandpa’s memorial service. Though I wasn’t intentionally avoiding this post, it’s been easier not to think on it. Life is busy and has many distractions, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t stop and remember.

I share some thoughts from my journal, dated Oct. 7:
There are so many positive impressions and good memories of yesterday’s memorial service for Grandpa Herb, it will be difficult to remember and record them all.
The day started out as mom and I worked out at the Park Plaza Hotel gym, then walked down Last Chance Gulch. The historic buildings and old brick kilns took us back in history. Mom and I kept walking until we reached a Mount Helena City Park trail head and decided to explore that. We ended up hiking where the snow met the mountain, and we climbed above the city to overlook a beautiful valley glowing with fall trees and snowcapped mountains behind brick buildings enduring another season. I wished I’d had my camera, but some moments I suppose you can’t capture completely.
I think we rejoiced that the day had arrived to remember and celebrate Grandpa’s loving and full life.
After we retrieved Olin, we ate breakfast at the Park Avenue bakery. The warmth of the ovens and coffee easing the chill from outside, we reminisced about Grandpa’s favorite days hauling wood with his old pickup in Rimini.

Later in the day we made our way out to the little church in Clancy, which is where grandpa attended since he’d been living in the nearby nursing home.
When Pastor Uda started reading my Grandpa’s stories (dictated years ago), I started crying, which took my by surprise because I’d held it together up until then.
I felt joyful to be celebrating his life and freedom from pain, and yet the magnitude of the fullness of his life struck me. There was so much there that we didn’t know or remember when we saw his failing old body.
He had been a striking young man, a hulk of a guy who set throwing records and played college football, and had his choice of women.
Yet he chose my Grandma LaVaughn (who was already married when they first met). Their story of falling in love, her leaving her alcoholic first husband, and marrying right before Herb shipped off to war is a remarkable one. She nursed him back to health after he came back with one eye missing and much more wounded than that.
For Herb’s 89th birthday my mom had a video made of his legacy, which they showed at the memorial. It was a beautiful testimony to a full life.
My cousin Nellie represented the grandkids by speaking about how he was always our biggest fan. He attended every sporting event he could, and got as involved as he could—even if it meant driving his van right up on the cross-country course.
How many 80-something grandparents e-mail their grandkids? Nellie said she got a priceless e-mail from him that read: “Nellie, I seem to have lost your e-mail address. (Yet somehow he managed to get this e-mail to her) Can you send it to me?”
His grandkids were his pride and joy and he told everyone everything we were up to—giving us superstar status.
At the reception the other grandkids shared impromptu how his life had affected us. Bell stood up and said it was an honor to have him as a part of their special event.
I agreed and said it was part of his amazing story that only God could have written.
No other event would have gotten us all together at once. Every good story has conflict and tension, and the overcoming of it. Grandpa displayed being an overcomer his whole life. He learned from his hardships and taught us to be life-long learners as well. I think one of the crowning accomplishments of his life was that he saw all five grandkids graduate from college. Not even death could keep grandpa down. Now he’s in heaven reunited with loved ones and his legacy lives on in each of us (as I wrote before, but think it’s worth remembering).