Eulogy for my Grandfather

This is the eulogy I read at my grandfather's funeral service this evening.
My participation was kind of spontaneous - I woke up inspired in the middle of the night Friday, and wrote the whole thing in one sitting from about 2am-4am. It just poured out of me. I figured no one else was going to read one, so I took ownership.
I purposely tried to include my grandmother as much as possible, because the eulogy at her funeral was so terrible - the priest didn't know her and could barely speak English. I did not want a repeat of that, and I felt this was my opportunity to correct that, and add something personal and emotional to the funeral service.
Our family alternately laughed and cried. I feel proud of my words.

R.O.H. was born in Stuttgart, Germany in the spring of 1913… April 4th, to be exact.
If you stop to think about it... that’s a heck of a long time ago.
As a young child in the 1970’s, my grandparents seemed like ancient unchanging creatures, with fascinating stories stretching back in time, through the Eisenhower Era, World War Two, the Depression, and even World War One.
My mother and I moved in with my grandparents when I was 4 years old, and I got to hear a lot of those stories over the years. And now, 20-something years later, I have quite a few stories of my own… about them.
I grew up calling them M. and G.
And growing up in the 80’s, I’ve always tended to associate my grandparents with Ronald Reagan and Johnny Carson. They were both card-carrying Republicans, and I can’t even begin to count the number of times they fell asleep in front of the TV set, after making it through most, but hardly ever all, of the Tonight Show. Earlier in the evening, M. would have fixed them both hi-balls… a small but potent mixture of bourbon and sprite. She would stir them together with her finger. As a child, I asked for a sip once or twice to see what it tasted like. My 8-year old taste buds gave it the “thumbs down”.
During most of this era, Granddaddy was what he liked to call “semi-retired”, which I think means that he was done with working full-time, but he and Mema still enjoyed the old routine of having him out of the house.
He would come home from work at the end of the day, sometimes collecting stray golf balls from the front yard on his way inside.
On certain warm days, he would take me for sunset walks through the golf course across the street. There was a creek that ran across the course diagonally, and we would follow the water upstream to its source. And on a few magical June nights, once a year, there would be a grove of lightening-bugs halfway along the trail, and you could stand there surrounded by hundreds of small blinking lights… on and off, on and off. It was amazing.
On those nights, M. would have dinner ready for us when we got home, after a long day of hanging laundry in the back yard, sewing, and washing clothes.
Many would agree that, like many couples of their generation, it was really the dutiful wife who secretly ran the show behind the scenes, and did the lion’s share of keeping the household in order.
But they did a lot of things together. No matter what project he took on, she was always there assisting him and sometimes even taking over and doing it herself, regardless of whether it was fixing things, mowing the yard, or gardening – she loved her rose bushes.
And they used to do fun things together as well… cruises, trips to Europe, weekends in the Ozarks, swimming in the back yard pool, going to Cowboys games together, and the horse races. They loved to tell the story about how a certain horse nodded its head at M.. So she placed a bet on it… and she won big.

M. and G. didn’t really believe in ghosts or spirits or the supernatural or even in more scientifically provable things like… evolution. But G. did believe in the power of miracles. Many of us have probably heard the story of how he believed God cured his kidney stones one day while he was sitting in church praying. He loved to tell that story later in life. When it came to religion, he had a quintessentially German attitude toward following all the mundane rules and the regulations of the church, sometimes to a fault… but there was also a side of him that believed in the transcendent power of prayer and miracles.

Just like any couple, M. and G. did their fair share of bickering and arguing, much like an old broken record, but behind it all was a life-long love affair. There are other people here who are more qualified to tell you the story of how they met… I wasn’t there. But I do know that they dearly loved each other. And they shared their love with their two children, six grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren, as well as their siblings, nieces, nephews, cousins and friends. And I know that G. never got over M’s death a few years ago. He talked about her to both friends and strangers during these last few years… sometimes smiling; sometimes on the verge of tears. She was a very special woman. And she was very special to him.
I know that he wanted to be with her again. And now I believe they “are” together again.
And maybe, just maybe, Johnny Carson is up there with them too, giving them a joke monologue live and in person each night.
Hopefully, they’re staying awake through the show this time.