The Paterfamilias

One of my favorite Brad Paisley songs tells the story of a woman who isn’t anything special to most of the world, “To the teller down at the bank, you’re just another checking account, to the plumber who came today, you’re just another house…”  But to the person who is singing the song, the woman is something pretty special.  “To the world, you may be just another girl.  But to me, baby you are the world,”. 

My Poppa died this week.  To most of the world he was just another guy.  But to those of us who knew and loved him, he was our world.  He lived the American dream, rising from humble beginnings to be the first in his family to graduate college, persevered through a long career in the business world, which culminated in buying and building a successful company.  He then sold the company to live out the kind of retirement we all dream of: travel, living in beautiful places, investing time and money in the causes he believed in, and most of all, spending time with family and friends.  The life that he and his wife of sixty years built together has supported and inspired all of us who came from them, and although we knew his death was coming, it’s still jarring and surprising to be standing together in this place of loss.

Probably our first picture together, and first of him as a grandpa

I don’t feel like I knew my Poppa very well, and part of that is because he lived two-thirds of his life before I was even born.  I don't really know what he was like as a child, as a young man, as a young parent, in middle age.  I’m so grateful for the many, many trips they took across the country to visit us through the years as I was growing up.  I’m grateful for the interest he took in my hobbies and schooling and family.  Because of those efforts, I did know him and he knew me.  But what I do know for certain about my Poppa is that he was a man of faith, and the importance of faith is something he and I shared.

Poppa with the first two of nine grandchildren

Aside from great-grandparents (who I didn’t really know) passing away, this is my first experience with death.  I feel like I have been very sheltered, being able to say that after 31 years of life.  And since faith is so important to me, I am trying to come to grips with what has happened through the lens of faith.  There are all kinds of platitudes about death.  He’s in a better place, he’s not suffering anymore, he’s at peace, it was his time.  And while I don’t disagree with any of these comforting thoughts, I think there is much more to his death, which I am bold enough to say wasn’t really, or wasn't just, a death. 

This is the picture I went searching for right after I found out he was gone

My Christian faith tradition teaches that life on this earth is not all that there is.  Because Jesus came to earth, died, and rose again, we humans have been united with God in an eternal life.  And the end of this life is just the beginning of that eternal one.  And in that life, my Poppa’s body is whole again and stronger than he has been in years.  He is finally with his parents again.  He is enjoying the mountain views that he loved and having long conversations with God about all the questions about life that one inevitably accumulates during 82 years of life.  He is living in the fullness of God and waiting for all of us to be with him again one day.

 

Or at least that’s some of what I’m thinking to comfort myself.  I don’t know if his faith would have led him to agree with my personal platitudes of what happens after life on earth.  My mind keeps turning around lyrics from songs I know that speak of this time in life, which we can really only speculate about...

“With your final heartbeat, kiss the world goodbye, 

and go in peace and laugh on glory’s side, 

and fly to Jesus, fly to Jesus, fly to Jesus – 

and live” 

(Chris Rice, Untitled Hymn)

“Surrounded by your glory, what will my heart feel?

Will I dance for you Jesus or in awe of you be still?   

Will I stand in your presence or to my knees will I fall?   

Will I sing alleluia, will I be able to speak at all?

...  

I can only imagine, what my eyes will see when your face is before me, I can only imagine” 

(MercyMe, I Can Only Imagine)

His funeral mass is next week, after which I have to quickly shift gears and be physically and mentally present at school for a few days.  So I’m writing this now knowing that my grieving and processing has barely begun.  I’m pretty sure my break down moment will come during the Mass, because while I don’t know much about death, I do have a sense that this is a sacred time.  Because God is powerfully with us, and so Poppa is with us too, and this incredible time, of linking this life to death to eternal life, is new and uncharted and sad and, for me, so full of hope.

"One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek:

that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,

to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple."

Psalm 27: 4

Congratulations, Poppa, on living this life so well.  I can't wait to be with you again in the next, and will keep working to honor your legacy down here.  Love you always.

This little guy, partly named for Poppa - he is and will be the legacy of both of us