Grieving from a Suitcase

I’ve been in Africa for almost a month now. I figured I should start a blog and tell stories of all that goes on here. A lot has happened so far, but there is one pressing story that must be told first. This past week I heard the news that my Grandpa had suddenly passed away. This is the fourth funeral of a close relative I have missed as a result of living on a different continent. Grieving from across the Atlantic is next to impossible, so instead I have decided to celebrate my Grandpa Jack. It would fill all the libraries of the world to give an exhaustive account of all the different ways Jack touched people’s lives. Instead I will speak of how Gramps blessed and taught me.

I have especially appreciated my grandpa over the past couple years. Amidst my erratic behavior of different jobs, school, traveling, and having a baby, my grandpa and I found a number of times to go out for his favorite meal: breakfast. We were usually accompanied by the women of our lives, making these breakfast meetings more like a double date. That’s the thing with Grandpa Jack. Over the past couple years I never felt some sort of generational gap between us. Even though there was a difference of some 50 odd years between us, we cared about the same things: faith, family, and politics. These were the topics we always discussed around the table. And these were the things he taught me the most about.

Family: I feel it appropriate to talk about Grandpa and his family first, because it was the thing he was always putting first. His family legacy is insane. Lots of kids, lots of grandkids, and lots of great grand kids. He loved each one of us dearly. He signed our birthday cards two ways: with all my love, Grandpa Jack or Always, Grandpa Jack. These two phrases pretty much sum it up. All his love was invested in his family and it was Always there.

One time my grandpa was telling me about one of the famous trips to Florida with six kids in the station wagon. Uncle Tom, Uncle Chuck, Aunt Tammie, Aunt Patty in the back. Grandpa driving with my dad in the middle, Grandma Lil in shotgun with Mark on her lap. With a laugh he said they would drive for hours like that. Then he got serious and said, “Those were the best days of my life. I mean it, those were the absolute best times of my life.” And in turn he was always reminding me of how blessed I was. “You have an amazing wife and a beautiful baby girl. Remember how blessed you are. Take care of them.” These are the most empowering words I have ever heard in trying to be a good husband and father.

Faith: Grandpa was both very traditional and very progressive at the same time. In the realm of faith he was mostly a traditionalist, considering himself a devout catholic. I really appreciated this about him. Even I was no longer following catholic tradition, I had become a Mennonite, my Grandpa talked to me as a spiritual equal. One of my favorite memories around the breakfast table was him talking about the oddities of the mega-church phenomenon and how people go to church to be entertained. We both laughed about this. Then on a more serious note Grandpa talked about his father. How every night his father would get on his knees and pray for everyone in his extended family. My grandpa told me his father never told anyone about this, but one night he had accidentally found him doing this. By the way my grandpa was talking I could tell this was a tradition he had carried on into his own life: a tradition no one knows about.

Politics: In the realm of politics Grandpa was ahead of his time. In this realm he was very progressive. There were just some things he couldn’t understand. Why isn’t there universal health care? Why do we still fight in wars? I remember Grandpa went and saw Michael Moore’s Sicko, a critique of the American healthcare system. Afterwards he was really excited about it and told me “you just have to see it.” A grandpa telling his 20 something grandson to see a Michael Moore film? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Regardless I saw the film because of his recommendation.

This past Christmas we had one of our last conversations. Barack Obama had just been elected. The whole world breathed a sigh of relief. I asked my grandpa if he thought he would have ever seen a black president in his lifetime. He said, “You know I never thought of it. Growing up after World War two, OLPH (a catholic grade school) took in a lot of displaced black people. We were always together blacks and whites. I never thought anything of it.” Then I asked him who the worst president of his lifetime was. One word answer, “Bush.” “Really?” I asked. “Even worse than Nixon?” He said, “Two wars, and the economy. It has never been this bad.”

With this thought I remembered when the war in Iraq was breaking out, when the “united we stand” signs were on everything, and patriotism and propaganda were everywhere, Grandpa told me: “I can’t believe we are getting involved in another stupid war.” Before we knew there were no “Weapons of Mass Destruction”, before we knew the fallout and civil war that would ensue, before Haliburton was in our vocabulary, Grandpa Jack called the Iraq War “another stupid war.”

For all that I have mentioned I believe Grandpa Jack was more than just a good man, and more than a hero. He was a Prophet and a Saint, and I am privileged to have enjoyed his company.