The Garden of Flowers

Nana and I love to plant flowers in pots in her backyard.  Granddaddy used to come outside and bark orders to us, telling us how dumb we were acting and how we didn’t know what we were doing.  Nana always told him things like “Johnny!  Why do you have to be so grouchy all the time?  We could probably do it better if you weren’t yelling at us.” 

After Granddaddy passed away, before Nana moved out of their house, Nana and I did our traditional planting charade.  This time, sadly, without Granddaddy’s commanding voice, which we now wished we could hear again. 

…Lots of flowers died that year… Turns out granddaddy barked orders for a reason : )

The Bass Drum Player

Granddaddy told me this hilarious story of a marching band marching in a parade.  One of the bass drummers was marching along and suddenly disappeared… as fellow band members tried to make since of this strange phenomenon, they discovered the bass drummer with the bass drum still strapped to him wedged in a pot hole.  Granddaddy always accompanied this story with the famous Granddaddy laugh that we all knew and loved.  Heh heh *sigh* 

The Cross

It was a small golden cross made of metal.  This cross was mysterious from the beginning.  I never really knew where it came from.  It was likely to have been given to me long ago, but I remember finding another one exactly the same just a few years ago… I have no idea where it came from.  When I went to visit Granddaddy at hospice, I stopped in the parking lot and pulled one of the crosses from my pocket.  I kept the other one so that Granddaddy and I could share this connection.  I held the cross tight in my hand and prayed for Granddaddy to feel God’s presence through this cross and that when it is time for him to go, that he goes peacefully and without pain.  I walked into the building and visited Granddaddy for the first time in this strange, scary, and yet oddly homey-looking place.  I gave him the cross and tried not to show my sadness at seeing him in the last place I ever imagined him being.  He always seemed so indestructible.  I cried harder than ever that night driving home.  It was as if God was helping me to get most of the emotion out so that I could be strong for him as it got closer to the end…. as I asked for in my prayer.  A few days later, I heard that Granddaddy was found in the morning lying on his back in the bed with the cross on his chest.  It was as if he was praying in the night and he felt the need to be close to the cross.  A day or so later, I came to visit him and played music on the guitar that we both love so much for him.  I noticed the cross was on the table next to him.  During my next visit to see Granddaddy, I noticed the cross was gone from the table, and I asked family members if they had seen it. Worried, I asked a nurse if she had seen it while changing the sheets on his bed.  No one knew where it was.  They said that they would keep an eye out for it.  A few days before Granddaddy passed away, I came to visit once again.  I looked up and there it was… the cross- sitting on the table next to him.  No one knew how it re-appeared.  The day that Grandaddy passed away, I played the guitar for him for the last time…. The last music he would ever hear… it felt like it wasn’t the glorious music I would want him to hear for the last time, but Granddaddy was the best Grandfather and I’m sure he loved the best that I could give him.  I knew that the music in heaven would be better than he could ever think it would be.  After Granddaddy passed away, the cross was given to me.  It now sits propped up on a frame containing a picture of Granddaddy and Nana that was given to each of the family members one Christmas. He looks so happy in the picture and proud to be with Nana. The cross sits next to me so that it can remind me that Granddaddy was a wise, loving, and Godly man that, as it seems, kept faith and peace till the end.  I miss you Granddaddy and I love you more than you ever knew.  

Our Soldier

Jason wrote of a story that Granddaddy also told to me.  He told of a time he had to spend all night listening to the crying and screaming of fallen friends and heroes over the hill on the cold battlefield.  He told me how he never really understood why society thinks it’s ok to kill in battle when it’s not okay to be a murderer in everyday life.  When Granddaddy told me this, I thought about how much of a man he really was.  He told me that when he was drafted, it didn’t matter that he felt this way about murdering a fellow man.  He knew that going into battle was what he had to do to protect his family. When Granddaddy was faced with a much different battle that raged inside his dying body, he once again proved to be a brave and strong man.  As family members cried around him, much like the men on the hillside, the soldier in him fought on to the best of his ability to protect his family. Granddaddy was the strong man that held our family together.  He was a real man and a real soldier.  Every soldier or any person that strives to be brave and strong should follow in his footsteps.  I know that God provided this strength.  Thank you for the life lesson, Granddaddy.  We, as a family, and me, as your granddaughter, are proud to call you our soldier and our grandfather.