This is my Grandpa Harvey. He departed this life and went to be with our Lord this past Wednesday, November 14th, 2018. It has been a difficult week, filled with many different emotions. My Grandma, Betty, passed away in 2015 and it was very hard on my grandpa. In fact, that is a gross understatement. I don’t think a day went by that he didn’t visit her graveside and mourn her loss. He wanted to be with her so much that he lost the will to live this life. On top of that he suffered from dementia/Alzheimer disease, which steadily worsened over the years. The disease became especially noticeable after the passing of grandma. If there ever was a true love story here on this earth to be written, it is that of my grandparents.

This is a picture clip from a local newspaper celebrating my grandparents sixtieth wedding anniversary. They were married in 1951, and my grandmother passed in 2015. They were just shy of making it to sixty-four years total, if my math is correct.

I have so many great memories of my grandparents. I am thankful and blessed to have had them in my life for so long. When I was four years old I was in a four- wheeler accident and my leg was broken. I had to spend a lot of time in the hospital and my grandparents were always there. Grandpa spent many hours playing a board game with me that I loved. Being four, I had devised a way that I could always win, and he was always a good sport about it. 🙂 (Everyone also had to put up with my obsessive love for the movie Charlotte’s Web. I watched it non-stop!) Once out of the hospital and back at home,  they would come by the house every Wednesday night after church and bring me ice cream sandwiches.

When I was a few years older, my dad built my siblings and I a tree house. It had a rope tied to a nearby tree, and I would climb the tree house with the rope and swing off. (Yes, I liked to live on the dangerous side of life as a kid! 🙂 ) My grandpa would come by the house and watch me swing off the tree house. He was amazed at how much I loved doing that. It is one of the memories he would always mention to me later, when he couldn’t remember much else. So I know it made an impression on him.

Every summer/fall during harvest season, mom would take us out to the farm and we would visit with dad and grandpa. We loved watching the farm equipment and getting to participate in the work. (My dad and grandpa farmed together for MANY years.) We would take turns riding the combine or the tractor with grandpa. It was a special time to just sit on the combine with grandpa, whether in conversation or silence. He loved showing us how the equipment worked, and would even let us steer sometimes. 🙂

Grandpa loved fishing! Dad would take us fishing at some local pond and grandpa would almost always come along too. We would have our fishing poles all baited, cast out, and keeping an eye on them. Grandpa would start visiting, and on more than one occasion we would be talking only to look over and discover that his pole was missing. 🙂 Some fish would have dragged it into the water. Then it became amusing watching him try and retrieve it back!

Some of my greatest memories of my grandparents are at the holidays. They loved having all the family together. I can hear my grandpa now reading the Christmas story to us from the Bible. He did that every year before we would open presents.

If anyone knew how to have a great time it was my grandpa and grandma. They were a living example of what living a life for Christ looked like. They always prayed for all their family to know Christ and share in His love, so that one day we could have the greatest family reunion yet. I believe that one day we will!

While we are very sad and sorry for ourselves because we will miss him so much. We are also given peace and hope to know that he is no longer suffering, his mind is healed, he is in Heaven, and reunited with loved ones. I can only imagine the joy he felt as he was reunited with grandma, and they are now walking, singing, and praising God together.

 

Hymn of Promise:

In the bulb there is a flower; in the seed, an apple tree;
In cocoons, a hidden promise: butterflies will soon be free!
In the cold and snow of winter there’s a spring that waits to be,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

There’s a song in every silence, seeking word and melody;
There’s a dawn in every darkness, bringing hope to you and me.
From the past will come the future; what it holds, a mystery,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

In our end is our beginning; in our time, infinity;
In our doubt there is believing; in our life, eternity,
In our death, a resurrection; at the last, a victory,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

 

Let us be thankful for those God has given us to love, and for His grace and resurrection.

PK