Happy Birthday, Grandpa! I Miss You!!!!

My grandfather passed away a few years ago, and today is his birthday. I have a million memories of him. I feel incredibly lucky to be a part of his family.

As a small girl, my grandparents lived here in Utah. My parents made the decision, after college here, to raise my siblings and I around the country. We lived many places, but I always looked forward to summer vacations when we would trek out to Utah and spend time with our grandparents. I especially looked forward to time with Grandpa. I remember as a child feeling completely loved by him. I knew without question that he would love me no matter what I may do. I remember that he made time for me. He went on walks with me...and we would talk! And not the way so many adults talk to kids with the "yah" or "uhuh" responses to my ramble. Grandpa would LISTEN, and ask questions that let me know he was really hearing and wanting to understand me! I felt loved, understood, and important! I knew that the man I married someday would need to be just like this man I adored! (And that is exactly what I did. I married a man just like my Grandpa!)

Today, as I am lying down for my anticipated Sunday afternoon nap, my thoughts are on summer days at Grandpa's: watching him care for the beehives, enjoying fresh honey from his hives on big slabs of bread, long slow walks with long meaningful talks--of course he would make me wear a big brimmed hat so my fair skin wouldn't burn, picking watercress on our walks and eating yummy sandwiches with it in it when we returned, watching him lovingly care for Grandma--hoping to be loved like that some day, and most of all, his blessings.

Grandpa was a Patriarch in my church and had a brilliant ability to understand the impressions of the spirit. Receiving blessings through him are some of my most cherished memories with him. It was these moments that helped me more fully understand that God loves me, that He has a very specific plan for me, and that I am capable of the calling on my life He has for me--regardless of my often feeling inadequate. It was the confidence that he expressed that the Lord had in me, along with the confidence my grandfather had in me that helped me to make the choices enabling me to enter into the temple with the right man.

I remember many sleepovers on weekend at college at Grandpa and Grandma's place that had conversation that went late into the night. I remember scriptures were inevitably opened, as I would unloaded a heavy--sometime broken heart--that needed mending. Gospel insights and lessons were ALWAYS taught. But, never taught in a way that made me feel bad or dumb, but with love and compassion. It was Grandpa that taught me that everything in life brings both the BITTER and the SWEET. ("There must be opposition in all things.") And that our responsibility in bitter times is to discover the sweet, or the GIFT that it brings us.

WOW, it is not possible to begin to explain that gift that Grandpa was to me. Grandpa, if you are blowing out birthday candles up there in heaven today, know that that the light of your candle in mortality burned ever bright. It lit clearly the way for me. I only hope I can do the same for those around me.

I love you Grandpa.
sb