What I would have said

The last two weeks has been a flurry of funeral, festivities, and freaking out. Funeral for my Grandpa (Mom's dad). Festivities for Thanksgiving and greetings relatives that I had seen a year ago at Aunt Sue's funeral (Mom's older sister) and didn't think I'd see for another five years; as well as long lost cousins of my mom's who she didn't think she'd ever seen again and hadn't seen since she was 20. Freaking out as my family minus dad crashed at my apartment, ate, went to TN for the funeral, came back, and I tried to get finals (that I didn't study for) done, finish papers, find rides down to TN, ask for an extension, get my apartment somewhat clean, return sleeping bags and pillows, pack for South Dakota, say goodbye to those I could, and then drive with family to South Dakota. Only to realize once I reached here that my packing had been done in the mindset of college girl and not in the mindset of farm girl. My 16 year old brother graciously offered to loan me whatever jeans and t-shirts I wanted. However, the dear boy has no hips. Therefore jeans = don't fit.
. And on top of all of this, trying to push off processing the fact that Grandpa is no longer there on the edge of my peripheral vision, with his random appearances every year or so into my life.
Most funerals you get to say something about the departed, especially if you are related to the deceased. However, for whatever reason, this funeral didn’t have any of that. So I am now going to take some time to pretend that we are back in the Episcopalian church where Grandpa attended the last few years of his life and pretend that I have the microphone in front of the black clad crowd. And I am going to say what I would have liked to say, or the gist of it anyway, and in typical 21st century send it out into the void of cyberspace where it will do very little good but at least get it out of my head.

I was able to see Grandpa this summer, which was really fun. After we got over the awkward fifteen minutes of, “Well, we are related yet we somehow don’t really know each other’” we were able to start swapping stories, comparing movie opinions, playing the piano for one another, and looking at herbs and flowers in his garden.
I have been described as eccentric the last few years, and sort of wondered where I got it from. But visiting Grandpa this summer sort of cleared that up. He was loud, dramatic, loved oddities of culture, history and religion, tried new foods and cooking methods regularly, and when he dropped me off for my friend to take me back to camp, clean forgot to put on his shoes. We stood in the parking lot of a restaurant with Grandpa barefoot, laughing at something I had said and exuding charm and good manners at my friend, who apparently never noticed the lack of shoes.
He and Grandma, who passed away in 1999, loved to travel. The more you traveled, the higher you climbed in their ladder of estimation. The more cultures and languages you had under your belt, the more prepared you were to grab life by the horns and wrestle all the fun possible out of it.
They weren’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination. The ability to depend on them and their consistency levels were about nil, because they were too busy having fun in their various ways. And heaven help you if you got on their bad side. However, as a grandchild, I was protected by cuteness and the wonderful forces of nature which make grandparents biologically susceptible to grandchildren’s doe eyes and alligator tears.
Grandpa loved performances, of any kind. Whether it was me merely tinkering on his piano or my cousin delivering a speech at his mother’s funeral, Grandpa would offer hearty praise and edifying critique. Then he would ask if we wanted to improve, because he had a store of ideas for how we might do so. If we didn’t, though, he assured us that we were gifted and talented and he enjoyed the production very much.
After Aunt Sue’s funeral, we all crashed at her house. The boys stretched their long frames out on the couch and Mom and Monica dove into old photo albums, laughing and commenting on how people had grown and changed. Grandpa and I gave each other neck rubs and foot massages with some kind of ointment that filled the room with lemony, peppermint smells.
The day before his funeral we all gathered at the house he and his wife, Corinne, had shared for the last several years. Kendra and I pranked Monica by telling her Kendra was getting married when the unsuspecting cousin asked us what was new. Aaron and I took turns playing the Piano in between Uncle Mark and I discussing Eastern European culture and which languages we had learnt or were learning. I gave and Kristi a shoulder rub and Mom enveloped various cousins in bear hugs and commented on how they had grown while laughing with Monica about her difficult girls. At one point, Yahiya – ‘Grandma’ in Greek and Uncle Mark’s mother, but who we all call Yahiya and she calls us all sweetie – said, “Roy would have loved tonight. All the laughter and performances and the kids; it’s a party and he would have loved to be here and enjoy this.”
The evening after his funeral, we all gathered around the table in the kitchen with our various beverages and laughed long and loud about our crazy family. “Remember when you did this embarrassing thing and Grandpa said this” or “He did that and Grandma said this and then we all did such and such” stories were told. Some old ‘hush hush’ family secretes, and stories us Grandkids hadn’t known but the kids all did and had forgotten to tell us, or hadn’t wanted to before, or stuff we grandkids hadn’t thought to tell but the kids were shocked to hear, came out. And it was good and healthy and fun and loud. There was laughter and tears and cries of good natured indignation.

I’ve been really close to my Dad’s side of the family, and they have helped form and shape me into the person I am. They also love music, and traveling, and gardens. While my Grandma claims that any herbs I may sneak into the dishes when I cook for her are ‘grass and cow food’ she likes it in the long run, and what makes it especially nice is that they grew in the garden Grandpa has in the backyard. They occasionally do sporadic stuff as well, such as when my Grandma heard of the Czech couple who were going to just arrive in the US and go backpacking and insisted they stay with her until they had sufficiently learned how America works.

But it was nice to get to know my Mom’s side of the family as well. The obnoxiality is a bit more loud and in your face, and you can always count on some kind of mishap to occur and words of indignation to be expressed and if it is loud and people overhear, so be it.

I’m not going to end with any remarks of Grandma and Grandpa watching down on us in love and pride, because that doesn’t follow what I see Scripture telling us about the afterlife. If one has made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ and accepted Him as Lord and Savior, then once one dies and goes to Heaven, one is too preoccupied with the majesty of God’s glory to heed anything happening in our fallen and depraved world. This makes the grief a bit harsher at first, because one must completely let go.
However, there’s no lingering or holding on to the past.
And honestly, Christ is sufficient.
So for the foundations of both sides of the family, I am grateful and proud, because they enable me to so much more effectively serve my Savior and live out convictions.
To the ones who are now in the past of my life and no longer in the present, I am grateful for what was, wish there had been more, and say farewell.
To those who have been in and out of my past and hopefully will reoccur in the pages of my future, it was fun despite the pain and I hope there is more fun to come.
To those who have always been there, I hope you will continue to be there for many more years to come.
And to Jesus, who has given and taken away all of this, I say, The learning curves have been steep and the road bumpy and the sky rainy for quite some time. Any time You want to let up… sooner rather than later would be nice! However, as deplorable as sanctification may be, I know You work all things together for Good. So Thank You. Although I might be saying that through clenched teeth every now and again.

The End.
Now I'm not sure if I've offended, and if so I humbly ask pardon. But as I said, those of my maternal side of the family are not ones to sugar coat what they think or feel, they just put it out there. So I'm merely following my genetic predisposition. :-) Which is inconsistant with my views of sanctification and biblical living, but thats a discussion for another day. :-)