Farewell to Grandparents

Tomorrow my family bids farewell to my last surviving grandparent, James Straiton of Richfield, Minnesota, who fell asleep in Christ yesterday morning after collapsing at a family get-together the day before. He was my stepmother's father and a good friend of mine, all the way back to my teenaged years in the mid-1980s. I have many warm memories of times spent together fishing, playing card games, enjoying good food and company. He was always very kind and supportive toward me. His home was often a haven of hospitality for me, my family, and my friends.

I will miss Jim. I am glad to have had time to get to know him. I am comforted by the assurance that he is with his Lord, who had blessed him with a living faith in Christ Jesus. I am relieved to know that his time came quickly, without much pain, and that he was spared many of the indignities and disabilities of a long, steady decline. But I am not feeling as joyful as some might urge me to. I regret that we will share no more times like the ones we have shared, for the rest of my earthly life. I grieve with my family, especially my stepmom and her brothers, who were very close to their Dad. Their hurt adds to my hurt.

Having grandparents has been, in my experience, a wonderful thing. I have been more blessed than most people in that regard. And now that chapter of my life is closed. I will miss that too: the particular blend of wise warmth and almost recklessly indulgent love that a young person is most likely to receive from a Grandma and/or Grandpa; the direct connection to how the world was before one's parents were born, and the opportunity to explore that connection by listening to them tell stories about that world.

I had the privilege of knowing not only all four of my parents' parents, but also four of my stepparents' parents, plus several great-grandparents who at least lived to see me enter the world. I remember most of them. I enjoyed listening to several of them tell stories of their youth, connecting me to that time. And though I had a different relationship with each of them—some closer than others—today I mourn not only the one who died yesterday, but the whole lot of them. Until the day Christ calls me home, or comes to raise all the dead, I will never see any of their faces again except in photographs and memories.