Grandpa Bill

My sweet, sweet grandpa passed away almost a week ago.  I still can't believe it.  He will be missed so much and it hurts my heart to watch my grandma go on without him.  I was honored to be able to speak at his funeral and thought I'd share that on my blog.

On grandma and grandpa’s 68^th wedding anniversary, October 22, 2012, I spent the day at the farm interviewing grandpa about his life.  I would like to share some of his story with you and then share some of my memories.

Grandpa’s parents got married on June 25, 1919 and a year later, on the same day, he arrived.  He was born in the same house that he spent the next 90+ years of his life in.  Many of you know the farmhouse well.  In 1934 he started high school but missed the first week of school because his parents took him to Chicago to go to the World Fair.  When he came back to school, he said everyone knew where to go and he was lost.  He was in the biggest building he had ever been in and had no idea where to go.  He could often be found roaming the halls looking for his classes.  This led to some senior boys finding him in the hallway and they would sit him on the water fountain.  So, he said, for the first 10 days of high school he always had wet pants! 

When he was a senior in high school, he met his future wife, Van.  He asked Van 3 times to go out on a date with him before she finally accepted.  She sure liked to play hard to get!  By the third time of asking, grandpa thought to himself, “If she doesn’t accept, that’s it.  I’m not asking again!”  Good thing she accepted or most of us wouldn’t be here today.  They dated for 7 years and got married in 1944.

After 2 years in the navy, he spent pretty much the rest of his life farming the same 120 acres that his father owned.  He was pretty amazing and didn’t officially retire from farming until he was 88.

If you knew grandpa well, you would know that he was quite ornery and mischievous.  I think this is what led him to such a long and happy life.  He could often be found with a piece of food hanging out of his mouth.  Not because he didn’t know it was there, but to get a reaction out of someone.  If you tried to tell him about the crumb or long piece of spaghetti hanging from his mouth he would wipe at the opposite side of his mouth and tell you he didn’t know what you were talking about.

He could often be found sneaking food off of grandma’s plate at the dinner table and then “play dumb” when she asked where her missing food was.  He kept her on her toes.  Grandma could never take her eyes off of him because he would be up to some trick.

Another little goofy quality he had was the way he would wave goodbye.  I had the opportunity to live with grandma and grandpa many, many years ago for 16 weeks while I student taught in Lexington.  Every morning as I would pull out of their long driveway, he would be standing in the window with one hand holding the forearm of his other arm, limp wrist and shaking his arm up and down to say goodbye.  I’m sure many of you have experienced this goodbye wave of his.  I can still picture him standing in the window waving.

He was also very quick witted.  He would often answer the phone when I would call.  We would always have a short conversation but because of his hearing he would hand the phone over to grandma.  One time as our conversation came to an end, I asked if grandma was around.  His reply, “Oh, she sure is round!”  And in the background I could hear grandma saying, “Will!!! Give me the phone.”

Oh, man he could make me laugh.

Besides his humor, the thing I think I loved most about him was his ability to talk to anyone and make anyone feel accepted and loved.  He was Mr. Social and could carry on a conversation with even the most difficult person.  He was always interested in what you had to say.  Because of his genuine interest in everyone, he seemed to know everyone and something about them.  His friends, whom he would meet for coffee almost every morning, called him The Encyclopedia.  “Ask Bill,” they would say.  “He’ll know what year that happened.  Or who married who.  Or what that person’s name was.”  And sure enough, he most likely did know.  Many of you have shared kind words about him this week with the family and it has meant so much.  Grandpa touched many lives and it has been nice hearing how much he was loved and how much he will be missed.

When grandpa got the news that he had leukemia and that his time here was short, he said to grandma, “We’re going to keep living life.  We’ll pray a lot.  We’ll laugh a lot.  And we will live one day at a time.”  These were the same words that Grandma’s sister, Lindy, shared with them when she told them she had cancer.  These words and actions had gotten them through difficult times before, and these words would carry them through to grandpa’s final days.

Grandpa lived life to his last breath.  He knew who everyone was in his final days and he was very concerned about grandma’s well being.  This is how he lived life.  She was his first priority and he took care of her to the end.   He held her hand and called out her name in his final hour.  Oh, how he loved her.  After being together almost 77 years, a friend of grandma’s put it well this week when she told grandma that the Lord had twisted their hearts together after all these years.

And despite grandpa’s health in his final days, he still made us laugh.  One afternoon as he lay sleeping, he sneezed in his sleep and woke briefly and said, “Well, that was fake!”  And then he fell back asleep.  Two nights before he passed away, grandma was sitting by him on the couch and as she tried to stand grandpa leaned over to one of his grandkids and said, “This is the fun part.”  He pushed grandma up off the couch and tried to pinch her bottom.  Then he said, “Sometimes I miss though.”  These were the things that could make us laugh and were so cute about him and showed his love for grandma.

Grandpa, in my opinion, was one of a kind.  He was genuine, funny and well respected.  He is someone who inspires me to be a better parent and in the future to be a good grandparent.  He was surrounded by many loved ones in his final days because he had invested in all of us.  As he entered the gates of heaven a few days ago, I pictured him standing there in shock and AMAZEMENT and saying, “Well, I’ll be.”

As you leave here today, I’d like to challenge you to take a piece of grandpa with you.  By that I mean to be kinder to a stranger.  Talk to people more.  Listen more.  Love your spouse a little more.  Invest in your family a little more.  It will probably look different for all us because we all knew grandpa in different ways, but I think we can all agree that there is a piece of him that touched us the most and that we can take away with us to keep his memory alive.