My grandfather passed away on Saturday April 24th. Although his health had been declining (I think his body was just wearing out), I never expected that he would passed in the night so SUDDENLY.
I was still awake, winding down from work when I got the call from my mom Saturday morning at 3am. I literally started sobbing on the phone, it almost sounded like a wail. I went over to their house immediately with Mark. It was evident he had recently passed away, as his body was still warm. I know he is in a better place, where he is not shaking so much and where every day is a GOOD day (instead of here on earth where he had bad days and good days).
My grandpa stepped up and happily took the role of "dad" when my own father couldn't or wouldn't do it. He baptized me, and was there for every important event in my life. We were reading his journal yesterday and he spoke about my high school graduation and my mission farewell talk (among other things). I could hear the pride in his voice, so to speak.
I lived half a block away from him growing up and when we bought our own house the half a block grew into about 2. He was a constant fixture in my life. I spent some time (ranging from 1 to 3 weeks) every summer with him and Grandma in Escalante when I was younger. So many of my childhood and adult memories have my grandfather in them. I will miss our visits and talks.
We often talked about our heritage, Utah's history and American history as I was growing up. The talks continued when I became an adult, and although I had heard several of his stories dozens of times, I still LOVED to hear them.
I know that my love for my grandpa, along with his stories about our heritage and history helped me cultivate my deep and continuing love for history today.
Here are some of my FAVORITE pictures with him. I found the older ones when I was looking through pictures to submit to the slide show that will be shown at his funeral:
2 comments:
That was sweet Stephanie! Your grandpa will be missed.
I love that guy.
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