After the formal service, here is what I read from...
Hey, Grandpa. It's Pigama-doodle. I know you're here. Just like when you were alive, quietly listening. Smiling.I wanted to talk to everyone here for a little bit. About you. And what you mean to me.
There's an awful lot of stuff up here that your family has brought in to memorialize your life. There are a lot of medals. They're basically bits of metal attached to bits of cloth. But each one meant the world to you. When you were just eighteen years old, a senior in high school, still a boy, really, you were taken by the military and trained to go to war. You did the best that you could do in those horrifying times.
You were an ocean away from home. You were wounded twice. And you kept a piece of shrapnel in your body for the rest of your life. If that wasn't enough, though, you were captured by the enemy and taken as a prisoner of war. On starvation rations you marched in retreat with your captors for 200 miles over forty-seven days. You did your country proud.
When that war was over and you were liberated, I cannot imagine the gratitude you must have felt to finally come home. And you came home. And you apprenticed to be a carpenter. And you fell in love with and married grandma.
You built a house in the country and you and your beautiful bride made and raised a family. Three sons. Wonderful boys who would do any parents proud.
And what is it that makes you what you were to me?
One of my earliest memories is of you lifting me up. Slowly up up up. Up until you tapped the top of my head on the kitchen ceiling. "Boom!" you'd call out. And then you'd swing me down and into your chest, me squealing and giggling with complete abandon and joy.
That was when I was a little boy; I'm forty years old now. I have a hard time remembering the names of my coworkers and I've never been able to tell a joke but I remember a joke you told me when I was probably seven years old:
A newspaper reporter hears about an old Indian chief that's supposed to have the best memory in the world. The reporter decides to interview the chief so he tracks him down and knocks on the chief's door.
The chief opens the door and the reporter says, "How."
The chief replies, "How."
The reporter says, "I hear that you have the best memory in the world."
"This is true," says the chief.
"Well, what did you have for breakfast 25 years ago today?" the reporter asked, testing the chief.
Without hesitation, the chief replied, "Eggs."
The reporter was polite but didn't think there was much of a story here. So he went on his way.
Twenty-five years later, the reporter was retired and traveling the country and he happened to be in the chief's neck of the woods. He thinks to himself, "I should see if that old Indian chief is still around."
So he once again finds the chief's house and knocks on the door and sure enough the old chief answers the door.
The reporter says, "How."
The chief replies, "Scrambled."
Yeah, it's still corny. Most of your jokes were. But I haven't forgotten.
I'll always remember your hands. Even when I was just a little guy, I studied your hands. Always so big. Big carpenter hands. Hard. Calloused. Ragged at times. But always safe. And you made things with those hands. Ursa Minor sometimes asks me what I did at work for the day. I tell him as best I can, but it's nothing like what you did. You built things.
And I remember that house that you built for grandma, out there in the country. The home you two lived in for most of your lives. I loved that house. Big. Green. Built with your own two hands. Yes, with your hands. I loved it out there. But being out there in the middle of nowhere had its drawbacks. There was a fire in the house way before I was born. Part of the house burned before firefighters could put out the blaze. You didn't give up on your dream of a country home, though. You rebuilt the burned parts of the house and had the pond dug so there would be water nearby lest something ever happen again.
I remember going up into the attic and exploring on afternoons when it was too rainy to play outside. You had bound volumes of Chicago newspapers stored up there. I remember leafing through their musty pages, reading the funnies that you must have read when you were younger. Listening to the rain pattering on the roof. A few slightly charred beams showing underneath the new beams you put in when you rebuilt.
I remember going out fishing with you on the banks of the Kankakee River. You would sometimes take my hand while we were walking there, even when I thought I was getting too old to still be holding hands. I wasn't much of a fisherman. I'd crimped the barbs out of all my hooks because I didn't like taking the fish off. We never caught much, but whatever bullheads and bluegills we did catch we'd bring back and put in the pond. And it was sure nice sitting next to you on the bank of the river even if we were just being skeeter bait.
I spent a great deal of weekend time in my teen-aged years working alongside you while you renovated and repaired various residential rental properties that grandma invested in. I wasn't being gleaned to be a master craftsman wood worker; I was just doing whatever menial tasks needed to be done that didn't need any real skill.
To this day, there are times when I catch the scent of sawdust I am brought back to those days. Chilly, echo-filled rooms, and always a coffee break when it was time for Paul Harvey to come on.
When we worked, you consistently stressed paying attention to details and making it a habit to do the best possible work no matter what work was being done. From meticulously whittling a piece of wood to hand sanding a piece so that it fit perfectly with its mate, you never treated them like they were mere rental units though. You always put into them your best, most meticulous work, as if you were working on your own home.
I've got one of your wooden folding carpenter's rulers. When I was growing up you had one in your pocket almost all of the time. It was usually so used that it was smooth on the outside edges and the inch markings were worn off. I used the one I have just last week. Mouse and I were hanging up paintings.
Grandpa?
I miss you.
I miss all of the things I've just said and a lot more besides.
Most of all, though, I miss your hugs.
They were your love. And love is what you always did best.
In the days and months and years that stretch on from now, whenever I and anyone here find you in our memories, we should remember... Remember to give a hug. To hold a hand. To give a kiss. To touch someone that we love. You touched all of us, grandpa. And I know you want us to continue to touch each other.
As I said, Mouse was so very good in helping me. I truly cannot imagine how it would have been without her.