It was fifty-nine years ago today that the family buried my paternal grandfather. It had been a long week for Dad and, consequently, the rest of us. Grandpa, who suffered from Alzheimer’s, had wandered away from the nursing home where he had been living. Unfortunately, his absence had not been noticed and he wasn’t dressed for outside weather in January.
By chance, or even perhaps divine intervention, Uncle Wayne came upon an old man, without a coat, walking beside the road. From what Dad said, Grandpa wasn’t even recognizable but Uncle Wayne picked him up, returned to the nursing home and found out that Grandpa had not even been reported missing. However, that excursion, in the middle of January, resulted in what turned out to be a terminal case of pneumonia. Grandpa died on January 13, 1966.
I guess, in a way, it may have been a blessing. Grandpa didn’t recognize Grandma anymore – and he didn’t know his own sons or grandchildren. I was twelve at the time and it was the first time that I had been exposed to Alzheimer’s, let alone losing someone in the family. To be sure, my brothers and I didn’t know Dad’s parents nearly as well as we knew Mom’s family. I suppose that this was a blessing for us and kept us a little insulated from the grief that the family suffered.
I remember how seemingly different Dad and his two brothers reacted to the death of their father. Of course, I don’t know what was going on in their own private feelings but the whole experience seemed rather surreal. My brother Doug was eleven years old and Ken was 5-1/2 at the time.
My father had worked with Grandpa and other more distant family members but I was totally unprepared for the impact his father’s death would have on our Dad. He was absolutely inconsolable. I remember his middle brother, our Uncle Wayne, trying to come alongside Dad. But it was not to be. Nothing that Wayne could say or do could mitigate the grief that Dad, the youngest son, was feeling. Vernon, their oldest brother, was unable to attend the wake at the funeral home. He just couldn’t face the prospect of seeing his lifeless father. Uncle Vernon told me that he wanted to remember his father alive and more vital.
The whole event, on retrospect, was probably too much for my young mind to comprehend. It was the first death that I had been exposed to firsthand. It was like I was on sensory overload. In fact, it was the first time in my life that I saw my Dad cry. And I don’t mean just weeping – I had never seen my father this way. That memory is burned into my brain – I doubt I will ever forget it. It seems that every January I recall my father at that funeral home. And it was on January 16th, 59 years ago today, that we buried Grandpa.
Dad always had a soft spot at these kinds of events. He was emotional and this wasn’t something that I was used to. He seemed so different from the Dad at home. It was a side that I had never been exposed to and I know that I acquired an additional insight into my father after that January 16th.
I regularly replayed that day for years, including the day that I visited my own father at the funeral home as he laid in state. Between the time of Grandpa’s death and Dad’s death, the family also experienced the death of Auntie Lou and my maternal grandfather. Dad died when I was 25 – it seems so long ago now – this June it will be 47 years.
Try as I may, every January I still recall the day that Dad broke down at the funeral home. In fact, as I process that day from my older vantage point, I realize that it wasn’t Grandpa’s death that affected me nearly as much as my father’s profound grief. To this day, nothing has affected me the way that did.
I wish that I could rest in the knowledge that Dad was a believer. But Dad had renounced his faith and I still wonder how I could have reached him, if at all. Of course, my own faith wasn’t as strong back then. And who knows? Since the death of our youngest brother, Ken, back in 2020, I have held out hope that Dad may be in heaven with Mom and Ken. It gives me comfort, based on events during Ken’s final days, to think that may be the case!
Our verse for tonight is very familiar to most believers. It is a verse of comfort for those of us who trust Jesus. Jesus tells us, in John 14:1-4, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”
My encouragement this evening is that while we suffer unimaginable grief, and unbridled joy, Jesus is with us every step of the way. He is the way, the truth and the life for each of us. My prayer is that regardless of where we may be in our walk with God, we will celebrate the Creator of everything and be drawn closer to Him by the events, whatever they may be, that we experience during our time on this earth. Have a great day in the Lord, grace and peace…