Yeah, so my Grandpa died Wednesday the 13th at about 3:50pm.  T’was a bit of a surprise.  He died on the operating table while having a biopsy on a lymph node due to his latest cancer.  Over his lifetime he had had cancer twice before (all three were unrelated), a stroke, and diabetes.  And, other than a spleen that had to jump ship, he came through it all with no effects serious enough to slow him down.  However, it seems that during this biopsy many of the minor effects from various health issues over the years all ganged up to "get him back" during the operation.  They got 'im pretty good.

My Grandpa was a pretty cool guy.  Over the last few days that I have been back home for the funeral and whatnot I have learned many things about the things he did in life that I previously did not know.  Just about all of them were very impressive.  However, I'm not going to get into them now because that is not what I knew and valued about my Grandfather.  As such, I would like to mention the things that I will always remember him for.

I remember him trying so hard to ski with us on family vacations, but eventually having to give it up because he could never EVER handle the chair-lifts.  And yet he would sit contentedly in the lodge at the bottom of the mountain delighting in how is wife and family were enjoying the powder.

I remember spending the night with him and my grandmother and getting oh-so-thrilling lessons on proper Silverware usage around the dinner table.

I remember watching as he allowed his grandchildren to act as a catalyst in his transition from a bit of a grump into a man who didn't mind acting silly and being dumb with us for nothing other than the embarrassed laughter and smiles it would bring to all our faces.

I remember sitting around a campfire down in Solomon's Island, MD singing crazy songs and performing as "pipeless baggers" and just watching him smile and enjoy his family around him.

I remember as he got up and spoke on Joshua 1:9 and 24:15, about being strong and courageous in God and leading one's family in serving the LORD at both my brother's wedding as well as my own.

But I think the way I will best remember him is as the worship leader on Sunday nights.  It always made me so proud to watch him stand up front and sing to the God he loved more than anything else (at all times accompanied by my Grandma in her self-proclaimed "Edith Bunker" voice).  When the evening service got indefinitely put on hold due to a "lack of interest" at our church, he got some keys and began to hold the service himself.  Since then it was never an issue, and there were always families showing up to participate in worship.  It was these nights, in my opinion, that Grandpa's heart shown through the most. 

He was a man well loved by a large family, an ornately decorated Captain in the United States Navy, a successful contractor to designers of warships, and many more things that I'm sure I'll never truly know the depths of.  But above all else, he was a man who no matter what was going on in the world around him, would proudly proclaim "as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD" (Joshua 24:15).