My grandpa died early this morning, after a long fight with cancer and heart disease. He was less than a week from his 88th birthday. He and my grandmother had celebrated their 63rd wedding anniversary last September. He’s survived by his wife, a son (my dad) and 2 daughters, 5 grandchildren, and 7 great-grandchildren (I think…but I’m not close with my cousins, so there could be more). He served in the Marines during WWII. He was a blue-collar man his entire working life, the majority of which took place at a paper mill, but he lived with a serenity and gentle strength and dignity that made him seem noble.

I don’t think he ever set out to teach me anything. His wife and one of his daughters were schoolteachers, but Grandpa taught by example. He taught me what honor is, and that love can sometimes be very quiet even when it’s very large. He taught me that there are tremendously good men in this world, who are entirely worthy of love and respect. He taught me that tragedy in your past doesn’t have to negatively impact your present or your future, unless you let it. He taught me that a little bit of cynicism and a lot of laughter is a good thing.

He wasn’t perfect. But he was the closest thing to perfect that I had in my family. He will be fiercely missed. He was probably the only person on my dad’s side of the family with a passionate nature, although he (like everyone else on my dad’s side) wasn’t a demonstrative man. But he loved profoundly, and I loved him profoundly. When I talked to my dad this evening, he told me that my grandmother was “taking Grandpa’s death really well, being a real trooper, not letting her emotions get out of hand.” If I got any of my spitfire from that side of the family, it for damned sure came all from Grandpa! And I’m glad, because for all my practicality, I do believe in living life to its emotional fullest.

Grandpa didn’t want a funeral, but there will be a gathering for the family at my grandparents’ house this Saturday. My grandmother called it a “celebration of his life.” It’s certainly not going to be the traditional Irish wake that I’d want after my passing, but I’ll be there to honor him…and if I cry, I’ll do it without shame or censorship. He wasn’t a religious man, as far as I knew, but I do think he would have appreciated the sentiment of my favorite poem about death (by Mary E. Frye):

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow,
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.

I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am in the starshine of the night.

I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room,
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.

Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there, I did not die.