grandpa-my eulogy

         I met Grandpa twenty-nine years and some odd months ago, when I was sixteen months old. Of course, I don’t remember the occasion, that is the fact I was told, so I must go with it. To me, Grandpa was much more than my mother’s step-Dad, he was not some stand-in, semi-adoptive family member or surrogate of some sort, but the real deal. He was my Grandpa. He was never afraid to get his hands dirty, metaphorically speaking, spending a lot of one on one time with my sisters and myself, and speaking quite literally, he got his hands dirty every day of his life. I am now thirty years old and Bob Curley was always Grandpa to me.

         Grandpa worked almost all of his life, but he didn’t work his life away; he truly enjoyed his work. I don’t know, personally speaking, many people who can say the same thing about themselves. I had the privilege to work with him on a few different projects through the last few years of his life, and he taught me a lot about carpentry, work ethic, and life in general. It was not an uncommon occurrence to be riding along with him, anywhere along the road, and he would stop to take a look at a piece of someone else’s work, to examine it, to see how it was built. After awhile, I could just stand back and watch him, inspecting and checking things out, and I could almost see what was going on behind those eyes. He was making notes and blueprints in his mind, complete with a parts list and changes that he would make to do it “Bubba’s Way” .It was astonishing to see that he would remember the information all the way to the lumberyard, whether it was the next day, or weeks or months down the road. His capacity for recollection on all the technical info was amazing to witness, but even more amazing to see him recreate what he had seen,  better in so many ways.

         Grandpa served in Korea, but didn’t talk about it much. The most we touched on the subject was when he confessed to me one day, while working, that he had minimal feeling in his toes and fingers, due to the frostbite he had endured during the war.

         Cancer took Grandpa from us, but I don’t think it knew it was in for a tooth and nail fight to the finish. Cancer could have chosen an easier target, that is a stone-cold fact. I have thought about this sickness a lot lately, the way that it has taken him, and there is only one good thing about the slow, freight-train style that Cancer took him away; we had time to talk in these last few years, and everything that we needed to say to each other was said. No stone was left unturned, “I love you,” was said countless times.

         Everything Grandpa taught me about work was a combination of “On the job training” and the Wisdom of the stories of his youth. Everything he taught me about life was much in the same way. He lead by example; he was kind, compassionate, generous, affectionate, and both patient and tolerant when others were not. All of these things are intertwined into a much larger ideal of life that I believe in whole-heartedly, at the vortex of which is the idea that you don’t  have to share any D.N.A. with someone to be “related” to them. Relations and relationships are built upon time spent together, and depending upon each other to bring out the best in ourselves. That two people are related more, in the big picture, by experience than by genetics.

         Grandpa taught me a lot about life, work, and unconditional love, and I consider myself as lucky as anyone else who knew him this way. He was a happy, generous person who almost always considered himself last. Knowing him humbles me, I have much to learn, but I know I can always look up to him.

         In closing, I wanted to include a sentence that will remind me of him forever, whenever I hear it, he will be there, in my head and in my heart. It is a sentence that I feel encompasses him as a person, more than any other small group of words can.

“I’m happy if you’re happy”

         I’m happy, Grandpa, Goodbye, there is no doubt you are in a better place. Not that it was easy letting you go there.

                                             

Your Grandson, Rob