Nasty Conjugation

So previously I mentioned certain, “circumstances,” which had arisen that impeded my best intentions to update. My Grandpa passed away two weeks ago, so we’d spent five days in Orlando to be with my family. We didn’t have a big funeral, just a memorial ceremony at his apartment with family and friends. It was nice, though - we had a slideshow playing on the TV in their meeting hall, and approximately 180 meatballs. I read a little thing after the preacher, which you will find below.

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It’s been difficult trying to understand how I feel about Grandpa’s passing. It seems like he’s always been there - which he has, ever since I was a baby. He was there for some of my earliest memories – for long walks through the woods, which I still have a habit of taking. He would take me fishing. He contributed to my long tradition of self-injury when, at a young age, he gave me a hatchet to chop firewood – with predictable results. Once, during one of our walks, I’m told he stole a bike because I was tired and didn’t want to walk anymore.

Now I’m grown up, and Grandpa’s passed on. We love him, and we already miss him terribly. I know we’ve got our memories, and that’s a comfort, but I don’t want him to be stuck existing only in the past. So let’s think about it differently: none of us, his friends and his family, would be here today without him. So he’s still here with us in the present, in our gathering together, the thread that connects us. We’re his legacy, the continuation of his life.

And I know that I’ll see him in the future, too – when people accuse me of being an old man, I know I’ve got him to blame. He’s the tall, lanky, frugal, sometimes grumpy, sometimes funny old man that I’m already becoming, that I hope to be one day. So sixty years from now when I look in the mirror I’m sure I’ll see him again.

So let’s celebrate Edward Kunz, because in some ways he hasn’t gone away at all, and if that’s the case I don’t think he would have approved of a room full of people moping around all day for his sake.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 17th, 2008 at 10:16 pm and is filed under Entropy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.