Lawrence William Yoder

My Grandpa passed away yesterday.

This was the last time I saw him, about 5 years ago, when Grandma passed.

When the kids got up this morning, I told them that their Great-Grandpa died yesterday and I shared with them some of my memories of him.

I remember going to visit Grandma and Grandpa in this house:

In the front of the house sat the living room, with two reclining chairs and an end table in between.  Grandma would rock grand babies to sleep in her chair and Grandpa would sit back in his and watch, very loudly, the Tonight Show.  And sitting on that end table, he always had a dish of candy oranges.  I never liked those things, but felt like I should because they were always sitting there.

 I told the kids that today, instead of school, we were going to do some things to remember grandpa.  When I told them the plan, Eli asked, "So we're going to celebrate?". I guess it did sound a little like a party, but I told him that we were going to celebrate the life grandpa lived and celebrate the gift of family.

I remembered seeing candy oranges at the nut store we went to right before Christmas, so our first stop was there.  Grandpa also had bowls of nuts to crack, and that sounded a little too labor intensive, so we opted for some chocolate covered peanuts and a few other fun treats.

Then we went to the library to get some movies and spent the afternoon eating candy, watching movies really loudly and playing games.  I did take a bite of an orange and they are just as disgusting as I remember, but Eli loved them.  Maybe the love for them skips a few generations.  When Ben got home from work, we sat and talked a little more about memories of Grandpa.  I love that Ben has memories of him too.  He remembered hunting one time with just Grandpa and my dad.  Hunting was a last minute decision and Ben didn't have any gear, so my Grandpa let him wear his clothes and even shoot his gun, which was a pretty big deal. 

It's funny how death makes you think about life.  It actually bothers me how much it makes me think about myself, but grandpa's death has me mulling over some things.  My mom said that the last day he was able to talk, he said, "I've lived a good life."

I've lived a good life.

What an amazing thing to be able to say.

I pray that I will be able to say the same thing one day.