Silent Teacher

My grandfather died this month after his yearlong battle with cancer. I've never been this close to death before. I lost the majority of my grandparents before I was 13, and went to about a million funerals, but this is the first time I have actually watched someone die. It was hard to see. I watched this man who influenced me in so many ways, waste away from a healthy and active man to a shadow of a person.

I saw him the week before he died and I tried to be strong, but I couldn't. I cried right in front of him. The week before I was fine. When I went to visit, he was in good spirits, and laughing. He told me how much he loved me and I said the same. I told him that the summers I spent with him were the best of my life. We reminisced about rock hunting on the beaches of Petoskey. We would fill five gallon buckets with rocks trying to find the most unusual and beautiful ones. We would eventually find a few Petoskey stones, and he'd haul those buckets up the hill to the car and we'd take them back to his house. I'd sit in the grass and go through them all. I would find the ones that I thought were worthy and take them back home with me and put them in my rock polisher. He was always so excited to see the finished product.

Three years ago my grandfather and grandmother became to old to live in their house, so we all went up there for the weekend to have an estate sale. In the garage I found our buckets of rocks. They were still sitting there. I roamed the property wandering through his beautiful gardens, and watched my children climb the trees that were too small for me to climb as a little girl. Everything had changed, but everything was still the same. I could see my grandfather setting up the croquet set in the front yard under the big maple trees. We'd play for hours and after we'd sit in the hammock and watch the birds. He taught me what the names of all the birds were, and what they liked to eat. I listened to them sing, and learned to identify their individual songs. Cardinals were always the easiest. But, those three years ago, the sound of their song seemed distant. The colors of the flowers were not as bright and his presence had already lifted from that place.

My brother and I took my kids to Horton Bay to swim. It was Labor day and the water was as warm as it was in the middle of July. I sat on the dock, and thought of the stories my dad told me about his grandfather living there. Horton Bay was a little village with a general store and a church. The church I went to all those summers I stayed with my grandparents. My fathers grandfather was friends with Earnest Hemingway, who had a little place in Horton Bay. My great grandfather and Hemingway would sit on a dock and fish. And as I sat on that dock, I imagined them sitting there debating religion and politics as they often did. My great grandfather was a preacher, and Hemingway had his own ideas about religion, that often didn't sit well with his friend the preacher. But they found a friendship on that dock, despite the religious divide between them.

December ninth I sat in that church in Horton Bay and said goodbye to my grandfather. I listened to his pastor talk about what a great person he was. What a great witness to Christianity he was. How he touched the lives of all the people he came in contact with. But I what I remember about him was the fact that he was a silent man. He spoke with gestures, and kindness. And although he had the strongest faith of anyone I'd met, he never pushed it on anyone. His testimony lay in acts and service, and through those acts of selfless service, he spoke of how it was meant to be, to have God in your heart.

I could see God all around me that Labor Day weekend as I wandered through his gardens. I could see how he nurtured all of the natural gifts that God gives us. I could feel his love for all things, both great and small, and in that garden I found solace for my heartache, for a life that was only lingering, and would leave in only three short years.

I think I said my goodbyes to him that weekend, and at that point, I distanced myself from his life. If I would have known how short those three years were going to be, I would have been present more in his life.

I learned about regret this year. I learned that I don't ever want to have that feeling again, and I learned that it is a hard thing to let go of; To forgive yourself for. I learned to see life as a fragile thing. A delicate flower, that at any moment could wilt, lose it's beauty and fragrance. But I also learned that even though my grandfather was dying, his passion and love were stronger than death. I could feel them in his presence. I could see life in his eyes, despite the lack of it in his body. I realized that it was God's presence in him that I was seeing. It was God waiting to take his child home. It was a proud father. Proud of his creation in this man. It was God's manifest love. It was in that moment that I realized that I still have so much more to learn from my grandfather. And he may never stop teaching me. What an amazing teacher he was. He taught me all these things that I hold so dear to my heart, without saying a word.