Last week my grandfather passed away. He went into hospice care on Tuesday, and when I learned the news I had a hard time focusing on much else. Eventually I went on to write a LinkedIn post about how my grandfather is largely responsible for my entrepreneurial spirit.
He passed away shortly after and the memorial service was today.
I had prepared some words not knowing who else was going to choose to speak or not, but what I didn’t know was that the moment to share thoughts in the service never showed up. At first I thought that was okay, because I don’t don’t need to be the center of attention and my cousin Katie did a fine job delivering an overall snapshot of the man. But then I got to thinking, “Well, shoot, if I were dead I’d want people to share nice things about me,” so here is what I wrote specifically from the viewpoint of an older grandchild.
Your perspective on Wayne will be different depending on your relationship. You would see him differently if he was your husband, father, uncle, or in my case grandfather.
With 13 grandkids and an 18 year difference between the oldest and the youngest, I’ve often thought that we kind of had different grandfathers despite him being the same man.
My sister Heather and I are the oldest two grandchildren. We had the benefit that when we were younger we could walk to the hardware store after school if we had a club or activity we had to stay late for. If just one of us was there it wasn’t a problem, but if we both ended up at the hardware store we would inevitably start fighting. And invariably grandpa would emerge from the basement where he was fixing televisions to yell, “You kids cut out that racket! For crying out loud!” At which point Grandma knew it was time to separate us.
In the summer, Heather and I also had the benefit of living closest to our grandparents during that time that they still had a swimming pool. We would ride our bikes down there in our swimming suits and proceed with our cannonballs and rocking the inner tube back and forth. And invariably, Grandpa would emerge from the garage to yell, “Quit splashing all the water out of pool!” So long as we weren’t fighting in the pool, Grandma would often come to our defense and saying, “Oh, hon, don’t be such a grump.” And so that is how I often thought of grandpa when I was a kid.
Years after I reached adulthood, several grandchildren were still in grade school and junior high. I remember coming back home for some sort of family gathering. And to my amazement, Grandpa was roughhousing with the Dell boys, who are among the youngest grandkids. He was smiling and laughing and I remember thinking, “Who is this guy? Where is the grump that I know and love?” It was almost like not working six days a week had mellowed him out considerably. And the fact that the Dell boys didn’t fight half as much as my sister and I probably didn’t hurt either.
But even in those earlier, sometimes grumpier days, I never knew when Grandpa might pull in the driveway with the ‘57 Chevy to take us to church or randomly call me up to take a ride in the airplane. Believe it or not, he even put on his trunks and joined us in the pool a few times.
No matter what age grandkid you were, there’s very few of us who have not been humbled in a game of cards against Grandpa Wayne. And if you never got around to learning, there are plenty of us here today to teach you. I feel like there are many worse ways to remember Grandpa than earning your first loss in Euchre.
I don’t know if it’s important for me to put all my stories about Grandpa into the ether, but I felt like I should say at least that much. I’m sure our family will share many stories in the weeks to come.
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