Time Passing

My maternal grandfather stopped fighting his battle with leukemia on Saturday.  While I cannot make it across the Pacific to attend, my dad will be reading the following at his celebration of life.  It was written for those who knew him, but I think those who did not can understand a little bit about him from reading these simple words.

When I hear a ticking clock, I immediately think of my grandfather. Not the soft tick of a small clock, but the mechanical tock of springs releasing, cogs turning, and time passing. This sound makes me think of my grandfather because when visiting my grandparents I slept in the top bunk, opposite my grandfather's clock. The clock kept me company through the night with its masculine rhythm, and I would awaken to the choir of wind chimes whose song is the emotion of grandma for me. Often when I think of my grandparents, I find it hard to think of specific memories, as I am filled with these sounds.

My grandfather's nickname was Time, a name that proceeded my life by decades, but is fitting for a man who I recall not as a person, but as the sound of a clock. For others, this nickname is less fitting, as he will be remembered as a husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, teacher, neighbor, and even as Santa. In trying to describe who this man was to me, I felt like I needed more, I needed to tell some truth about Grandpa Time that no one else knew. Something that everyone could understand. Something that made him special amongst all of the people of the world. Something that made him the person so many people loved.

I spoke with my father at length, as we both have fond places in our hearts for him, but found it hard to capture what we loved about him in a forum that others could relate to. I think what made him special to so many people is that he was welcoming and accepting of everybody, no matter who they were, or how they saw the world. In reflecting on the memories I can recall, I realized that while in many ways my grandfather, who loved to barbeque and watch sports, was normal, he often had crazy ideas, that no one else was going to understand.

The earliest memory I have of one of his ideas, and the earliest memory of him I can put into the chronology of my life, is from when he and my grandma visited us in Alaska in the winter. I was about six years old, so the memory is not perfectly clear, but I remember him, a smile on his face, indicating that I should keep his activities a secret. He was cooking something in a metal bucket on the wood stove of our house, because he had a plan to revolutionize gardening. His new fertilizer was already named, though not tested, Moose Boost.

Moose Boost was dried moose nuggets, harvested from the wind swept forests of Delta. The hot bucket on the wood stove melted the ice that held them together, then drove off the moisture, along with what was not the most pleasant of aromas, making them ideal for transport on Alaska Airlines. He needed me to keep his idea a secret, knowing that, like any great idea, most people would not see the brilliance of cooking the manure of a two thousand pound deer in the living room.

My dad tells me that Moose Boost did not turn out to be the great fertilizer that Grandpa Time had hoped for. Sometimes, great ideas do not pan out, but he was a man who lived his dreams, and tried his ideas, even when they were a bit crazy. I think that was what allowed him to accept other people, regardless of how they saw the world, and I think that is why so many people are going to miss him so much. Because he was a big man, with a big heart, and a curious, accepting mind.

I share with you that story about him, so you can relate your memories of him to mine. So you can chuckle about Moose Boost, as you celebrate his life. And, so you can understand who my grandfather was, and why I feel special, loved and accepted every time a clock ticks each second by. Even though Grandpa Time has passed, each new second brings him back to me.