My Grandfather.

My Grandfather passed away on Saturday.  I didn't really want to post about it because it makes it feel too final. I think i need to though,  i don't think it has hit me yet that he is gone. The man has been there for my whole life.  We were very blessed to have had him for so long. He got to be a Great Grandfather many times over.  If we could have had him another 8 months, he would have been here to add another "Great" to his Grandfather title.
But he really was ready to go. He had cancer in a number of organs and had survived impressively with MS since he was 40...  The dear man was plain worn out. It was hard to watch him go, but he really assured us that he was ready and often said that he was often surprised to have gotten this far.  We tried to visit him when we could and he took a huge amount of joy in seeing my little one. My youngest daughter was born on his birthday and i don't know if he could have ever gotten a better birthday present.  I do wish the littlest would have had a chance to get to know him better, i don't think she will be able to remember him from 15 months of age, but as i told my husband, "Grampy makes a great  legend".

I don't feel ready right now to write a lot about this. I also didn't want to start my blog journal again without saying something.  Even if it were a private journal, this page would have been hard to write. I didn't want to not say something either... that just wouldn't be right.

He really inspired my interest in gardening.  He used to grow things like 12' sunflowers that he was quite proud of.  I spent a lot of time with him when i was younger. Much of it was either wandering through the gardens that he and Memere put together, or sitting inside and talking about strawberries and beans and tomatoes and peonies... just everything.  It doesn't sound like much and i'm not a great gardener, but he really was the major influence for my efforts.
To describe him would take days, weeks, months and to put it into a few sentences is not easy. But i didn't want to leave a blank page.
He really was the center of the family.  We revolved around him in many ways. Not just because he had MS and was stuck in a power chair, but he was the main consideration when family gatherings were planned.
Most families gather around the Christmas tree during Christmas parties. We gathered around Grampy.

When i was little and the subject of dying came up (he'd lived through a few heart attacks as i grew up) he never said "buried".  He said when he died he wanted to be "planted".  I liked the way it sounded much better than burying.  It had some expectation to it. When you bury an item, its gone. When you plant something, there is the expectation that something will happen to that which was buried....like a seed.
It reminds me of a couple verses in the Bible... particularly:

1 Th 4:16-17 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
Then we which are alive [and] remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

The "dead in Christ" are like seeds, planted and waiting to be raised up...

1 Th 4:13 But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.


Soon.....we will meet again.