Grandpa Henry

Some of my first memories are of hay bales, coffee cups clinking on a glass kitchen table, the bed of an old truck that babysat us while the tractors went around the field and steering the pickup in the morning while my grandpa kicked hay out the back for the cows.

My grandpa took me  ice “skating” on the old pond, helped me dig a 100 year old turtle out of the mud, took me swimming in the creek after a hot day in the field and I spent afternoons on the back porch with my cousins drinking pop and eating Little Debbie’s while my grandparents drank coffee. 

I snuck in the old bed across the hall every morning, was asked if I needed an allowance when I’d come through the door and I cried if my parents didn’t turn off the highway to their house. 

My grandma is my best friend. She has been since birth I think. I was always “theirs” probably because when your baby has a baby at 17, you help raise her daughter as you finish raising her. My grandma helped raise me. When the first few years of life were so unstable, my grandparents were our calm in the storm. 

My best friend lost her sweetheart yesterday. Even though her heart prayed, believed and begged for the opposite, my Grandma’s sun browned, gravelly voiced, hard of hearing sweetheart was finally able to let go and find a place to rest. My whole heart is broken over the loss of a man who helped fill the role of Dad for me, but my heart is shattered over my grandma’s loss of her “honey.” My brain can’t quite comprehend that he won’t yell HELLO!? in the phone when I call on my way to work every morning, he won’t be sitting in his chair waiting to scoop up McCoy and put him on the kitchen table but the thing that hurts the most this morning is thinking about my Grandma drinking coffee and her glass being the only one to clink on the kitchen table. 

She’s called me on the morning of my birthday to sing to me for 36 years but if she didn’t do it this morning I wouldn’t blame her. My heart had hoped he wouldn’t die today and it got its wish, but instead my precious Mama and my Grandma have to plan his funeral. No...today’s not really a “Happy Birthday” kind of day. 

He was tired. His old body was worn out. He worked hard, he loved his grandbabies and especially his Sweetie, my grandma. But he was tired. It was his time, his way but he leaves a Grandpa shaped hole in our hearts. We are thankful his struggle is over, but now we pray for my Mama, her brothers and my Grandma as we go through the next few days and learn to live without him. 

Rest Grandpa. Find you a cup of coffee and a field that needs to be baled. Get you a four wheeler and take a ride around your new home. Hopefully you can find the baby boy who was named after you and take him for a ride this morning. 

Papa Doug

Yesterday was one of those days you never want to experience. The kind with phone calls that leave you with mascara stains on your shirt and quick coverup explanations for your five year old. Friday, January 12 we lost our Papa Doug to a heart attack. It’s amazing how the world can change, fall off its path in the course of 24 hours.
I’ve only know Papa Doug for about seven years. But over the course of those seven years, Mike’s grandparents went from being Doug and Susan, to Papa Doug and Susu. Papa Doug was one of those people who would do anything for anybody. Acts of service must have been his love language. I’ve watched three generations fix a fence in the backyard on a blistering July morning. I’ve listened for the gunshot from Papa Doug’s gun when McCoy and I unexpectedly ran onto a snake after just moving into the new house. When our electricity went out one especially brutal July day, Doug and Susan went to a hotel and sent the generator that was running their house over to ours so our newborn son could have a fan. They have babysat our children from eight weeks old, first driving in from Wagoner two days a week until they later moved about five minutes from us. They’ve taken my Parker to preschool, picked her up and have even driven her to my school so she could do running club with me or be nursed if I had to work late.
Of all the kind things Papa Doug did, the one that topped them all was how he treated my babies. He wasn’t just their great grandpa, he was...he is...their best friend. He has napped with my son and played in the rain with my daughter. He taught them about water balloons, took them on walks to investigate the neighborhood, been the patient while Parks doctored him and McCoy spoon fed him jello. He’s had pillow fights and played in the office until Parker thinks that room belongs to her just as much as it does him. He fostered their love of ice cream, played basketball in the driveway and filled up the baby pool in the shade on a hot day so two little kids could play. He walked our land with Parker planting seeds and tying pink ribbons to mark where they were planted. He held McCoy as he went around the garage touching all the tools, getting things off shelves and really just seeing what kind of trouble they could get into. Those two and their orneriness made Susu and Parker roll their eyes. He and Susu gave up two days for the past five years and he shared his life with my babies. He loved them and they knew that without a doubt.
People say sometimes a person gets a 6th sense about upcoming life events. I don’t know if that’s true but I do know he did everything in his power every day to take care of Susu or Susie as he called her. He loved her in a way that once again left me confident he took joy in serving those he loved. They were inseparable and my heart breaks for her this cold January morning. I think he’s thinking about her though. As I’ve been typing this I glanced up and out the small window in our bathroom, I could see the most beautiful pink, red and purple sunrise. I’ve never noticed it before and even after I got up to take a picture and continue typing, it’s disappeared already. I think he sent it for his sweetheart. An early Valentine maybe.
He’s with Jesus this morning. He taught my ever inquisitive daughter about the Bible and I heard them especially focused on Bible stories and angels over the past few weeks. She knew her Papa Doug loved Jesus. Just like every other part of his life, he shared his heart with her.
The world...the family I’m ever so protective of is heartbroken this morning over the loss of a great man. They just don’t make them like Papa Doug very often.
I hope the time he had with my babies has left a mark on them that causes them to love their family in a way that reflects how he served his.