I received word this past weekend that my grandfather had passed away. Grandpa had been diagnosed with glioblastoma, one of the most aggressive forms of brain cancer, about a month ago. We had known a couple of weeks before then that he had a brain tumor, but we had no idea how serious it would be. By the time I went home to see him, he was in ICU, and then he was moved to hospice soon after. While he had been doing very well for a time, he contracted pneumonia about a week ago, which quickly weakened him. I got the news of his decline just in time and was able to Skype him the day before he passed.

Enough of the glum stuff. I’d much rather spend time talking about the man he was.

My grandpa was a good Christian man who loved the Lord. He was the lay leader for his church in North Manchester, which he attended for over 30 years despite moving nearly an hour away. Just about every time I would be up at their house on Sunday, we would get up really early to get ready. Whenever I sat next to him in the pew I would try not to smile during the hymns because his singing was so bad. He and Grandma both went to church camp at Epworth Forest back in high school and stayed in the Sandy Kay Cottage, which is still standing. I’m so proud to be the third generation sent to Epworth, and God willing I hope to send my kids someday too.

My grandpa was a farmer. I can’t count the number of times I saw him in a well-worn, holey t-shirt, covered with grease and sweat, and wearing his black rubber farm boots. If you ever couldn’t find Grandpa in the house, there was a really good chance he was in the barn, working on some kind of equipment. Grandpa’s equipment was always breaking down, mainly because most of it was so old. My brother Braden always loved to go up to Grandma and Grandpa’s because he and Grandpa spent countless hours together, working on fixing things. We used to laugh and shake our heads about Grandpa not being able to get his crops in until the following spring; there was always some reason, either because the fields were too wet or frozen or because something wasn’t working or who knows.

My grandpa loved his cats. Most of my life he and Grandma would have a whole slew of outdoor cats. Grandma had one that she particularly loved, but the rest adored Grandpa. He would talk to them in this high pitched voice: “Hiya _______! What’s the matter, hmm? Aw, nice kitty.” Wherever he went on the property, it seemed like they would come out of the woodwork and follow him around. Two of his favorites were probably Greasy and Lonesome; Grandpa gave Greasy her name after he rescued her from a bucket of grease, and Lonesome was dubbed so because he was always looking for attention. Many times Lonesome would hop up in the window, and he and Grandpa would take turns meowing loudly at each other. Grandpa would walk down his long gravel lane to get the mail nearly every day, and Lonesome would often be right there with him, weaving in and out of his legs.

Grandpa was funny and ornery. I remember riding this little seagreen bike up at their house as a kid, and one day something was wrong with it and we couldn’t ride it. Naturally, we asked Grandpa to fix it, and I can remember him riding it around the yard, his legs all folded up to try and fit onto it. One time Grandma got dressed up in her beekeeping suit to collect honey, and Grandpa decided he was going to dress up too, so he donned his welding suit and came out to ‘help’ her. He loved to tell the story of how Grandma got a bee caught in her suit once and started stripping down in the front yard trying to get it out. Sometimes he would unintentionally make people laugh; his and Grandma’s landline started acting up earlier this year, where the people on the other end of the line could hear him but not vice versa. After they figured this out, whenever the phone rang he would pick it up and yell, “THE PHONE’S NOT WORKING, I CAN’T HEAR YOU.” It tickled my mom so much that she called the landline a couple of times just to hear him say that.

My grandpa wasn’t perfect, that’s for sure. But those imperfections don’t mean a thing to me now. Damn it, I’m sure going to miss him. I’m going to miss the way he would call all of us ‘hon’. I’m going to miss his lemonade (which was just the instant kind, but it was his lemonade) and his chicken patty sandwiches on bread (again, just the frozen kind, but they were his). I’m going to miss his love for root beer, yogurt, frozen yogurt, and fudge bars. I’m going to miss his imitations of Grandma snoring and Donald Duck. I’m going to miss his ‘Grandpa-isms’: “hangaburgers” instead of hamburgers, “untidy Josephs” instead of sloppy Joes, “motemcicles” instead of motorcycles. I’m going to miss him and Grandma ‘hollerin’ (another one of his words) at each other across the house, and him rolling his eyes and saying “Oh, Grandma.” I’m going to miss all of his stories about family members, alive and passed on. I’m going to miss him being at major milestones, like how he came to my high school musicals and the occasional soccer game and my Gold Award project workday and graduation. I’m going to miss him saying grace before eating when we would get together at Easter and Christmas. I’m going to miss him looking for the TV remote so he could watch the news, and Grandma making him move to the TV in the back room because his shows were “too scary” for us kids. I’m going to miss him smacking his lips and saying “Mmm” when eating something yummy.

As much as I miss him, I’m so, so grateful I got 21 years with him. I think a huge part of my mourning is over the fact that my little cousins won’t know Grandpa like I did. I guess that just means I have a job to do: tell my cousins all the stories I remember and let them know what an amazing grandpa they had.

I love you Grandpa.