A Good Life

"Believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it."

- Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
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Glenn Best was the only grandfather I ever had. As his mind and memory slowly faded away over the last three years, grief came to live with us like a ghost growing more solid with every confused question, blank stare, or mistaken identity. Now that he is gone in body and spirit, it's as if we can finally acknowledge that grief, expose it to the light and hear those long-awaited sorries and sympathies.

But one thing Grandpa never forgot was how much he loved his family, especially Grandma. During one of his last stints in the hospital, when he couldn't remember where he was or why, Grandma went to visit him. I saw him laying there, a thin, gray, carbon copy of the vibrant man he once had been. And all he could do was look at Grandma and wink over and over again.

"The best thing a man can do for his children is love their mother," Grandpa used to say.

And he did. His love for her expanded and enfolded five daughters, four sons-in-law, six grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren in his lifetime. Not to mention many others.

I was his first granddaughter. As a little girl, I marveled at the racks of decorative spoons hanging on the walls of Grandma and Grandpa's dining room, a spoon for each of the states they had visited since retiring after decades of factory work. I wanted to visit all of those places. Then, I learned there were other countries. So, I decided I would visit those, too.

Nothing comes from nowhere. I owe much of who I am to this man who went to war instead of high school, who sent his daughters to college and taught them to choose men who would love their families as much as he did.

He rests in peace.

What follows here is my tribute to him. I read it yesterday at his memorial surrounded by flickering candles and flowers of every color. Then I played and sang a song for him and all of us. I botched the last chorus, but Grandma loved it. Bless her.

The church was full of faces with wet eyes. After it was over, a family friend approached me in the church foyer, "I could tell that you loved your grandpa very much," he said.

That was the best thing anyone could have said.
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For Grandpa-

I remember string beans and strawberries.

Our young summers.

Deployed to Grandpa’s garden to pick his latest crop

And build some character.

Grandpa was a builder.

Me, Kate, Mike, and Tom.

Kory and Kelly before us.  

And all our mothers.

Dirt under our fingernails. 

Waiting for Grandma to turn what was left of our strawberry harvest into daiquiris.

I’m sure she even made the string beans taste good.

Grandpa’s crop and Grandma’s magic.

They went together.

He was our swing set builder

Sandbox filler, Thanksgiving dinner blesser

Once upon a wartime sailor

Sometime accordion player

Farmer boy, mill worker,

Retirement traveler, souvenir spoon collector

Second father to me. Second father to my father.

Always expecting the best of us.

He could make anything out of anything.

Go-carts out of tractors.

Doer, fixer, builder, maker.

He could even make us mind

Sometimes stern, but prone to laughter.

Two wrongs don’t make a right, he said,

But three lefts do.

So began the driving lessons

On his lap

Before we could reach the pedals.

Next, he took us hunting for night-crawlers

And introduced them to hooks.

Grandpa had to do most of it for us.

More dirt under our fingernails.

Buckets and fish.

Grandpa and us.

No more crops in the garden now.

Neither sweet nor savory.

Only memories.

On the tree of life, I think there will be string beans and strawberries.