One of my fondest memories of Grandpa is about 10 (?) years old now. We were sitting by a fire on a clear summer night on his beach, looking at stars and talking way past both of our bedtimes. He'd told me all the standards, from Ford farm days to the monkey on the Church steeple. At some point he got up and said "c'mon, yah can't really see them all with the fire, eh". We walked over in front of the boathouse and we layed on our backs in the sand, looking straight up, side by side. He choked up a bit as he always did when he spoke about the love of his life (& as I am now) and he remembered aloud how my Grandma and he would do this exact same thing on those chill summer nights somewhere between 1956 and the rest of time. They'd lie there into the wee hours of the morning, pondering those stars and life itself. He always lamented that he was still here so long after she had moved on. But the greatest thing about this memory for me today is the glorious and perfect way it ties it all together into a truly happy ending for Grandpa's time here with us. I like to think he stayed on here so long after Grandma because God had work for him here, work influencing us all in a positive and loving way. His family, his friends, an entire town in some ways, were touched and moved by the man. Now Grandpa & Grandma are together again. Now, side by side in a heaven that we often ponder as we look at those stars, they lie side by side once more and they don't worry about the late hour. And now, whenever we ourselves lay our stressed out bodies down on that beach that I consider a little bit of heaven right here on Earth, we can look up at those stars and know that there's one more up there now, and we can know that now Grandpa will always be out at his beach with us. Thanks everyone, for sharing.
