Our Last Visit With Great Grandpa Bob

"Grandpa Bob was a good man."

Caedmon didn't know Grandpa Bob very well, but he knew enough to say that.

We had the honor of visiting my Grandpa on Christmas day, just a few weeks before he said goodbye to this world. He was very tired and didn't say much, and it was hard to see him like that. Somehow I knew that it was the last time I was to see him. 

He got to meet Esther that day. 

It's beginnings and endings all mixed up together.

 

I think he loved her. My mom got this picture of them looking at each other, each reaching their hand out to the other.

 

There was a beautiful creche at the nursing home where Grandpa Bob spent his last months. I loved showing all the different figures to Caedmon and explaining who they were. Their eyes were so lifelike, as though they really knew what a crazy wonderful mind-blowing thing it was for God to come to us as a baby.

As Caedmon and Esther grow, I'll tell them about their Great Grandpa. I'll show them the hutches and doll houses and benches and cabinets he built and I'll show Caedmon the picture of him at his drum set. We'll think of him when we rake leaves and pick up sticks in the yard, and when we hear big band music or see a Cubs hat.

I'm sad that they will not have the joy of knowing him as I knew him, but in some mysterious way he is a part of all of us. We will remember this " good man," and we look with longing toward the day when we will meet again.