"He'd Still Be Alive If He Hadn't Died"

That's what my mom said today about her father. It's true. (Think about it. It's really not true about every dead person.) Today's his birthday. He'd be 95 if he hadn't gone and died 10 years ago. His name was Wilbur but he was known to everyone as "Speedy." He was a tall, wiry, sturdy, smiling man. Danish blue eyes, a bald head, hands impossibly rough and gentle, calloused and tender all at once. The kindest, strongest, most devoted man I ever knew.

He was a medic in the Philippines during the war. Never talked about it. Wrote so many beautiful letters home, most of them with the salutation, "My Darling Wife,…" They are all yellowed and cracked and faded now, with that fancy fountain pen ink. Such a treasure. His younger, softer hand wrote only of the positive, with a hopeful tone, and with his sweet sense of humor. His concerns were only about his wife and daughter back home. We'll never know what ached in his heart or what images his mind held.

He was an electrician when I was his little granddaughter. He would take me to work with him sometimes. I think it was a white van. Full of those wooden spools of cable and oil-stained cardboard boxes of colored wire and worn crates of sockets and switches and plates and fuses and more tools and hardware than any girl my age would ever care to see. I learned about temporary poles and breaker boxes and the importance of hard work. I remember the smell of his sweat. A mix of coffee and cumin and oil and toil. He never stopped working. Always busy with a project, always rigging modifications to everyday items to make them more convenient or efficient. He always whistled softly under his breath or sang Danish songs. We would ask him what the songs meant, but he'd say he couldn't tell us because they had some dirty words.

He and my grandmother loved to go to dances at the senior citizen center. There were always more women than men, so Grandma made sure he would dance with all the "old widow ladies" at least once. Grandpa obliged because he was thoughtful and loved to dance, but I know he would rather have shared every song with his darling wife.

He liked crossword puzzles and loved to argue about politics. This morning my mom told me about my sweet grandpa insulting his baby brother. They were probably in their 70's at the time. My mother found her uncle Vernon milling about in my grandparents' garage. He was pouting. She asked him what was wrong. He said, "Wilbur just called me a 'damn Republican!'"

Grandpa used to cook for his dog. He'd be making cream gravy, and ask us if we thought Henry would like a little pepper in it. Henry's name started out as Calvin (he was my brother's dog first, during Kenny's Calvinist period). But Grandpa had to change his name after taking the dog in because Grandpa's next-door neighbor was named Calvin. Every time the dog ran away and Grandpa went out calling for him, the neighbor would come out of his house yelling, "Whaddaya want?" So Mom has Henry now. That damn dog has got to be at least 120 dog years old. He's blind, deaf, and incontinent, but still runs around and wags his tail like a puppy. Mom's ready to let him take a real long nap, but he's still so happy and oblivious to how a 120-year-old dog should act, she can't bring herself to put him out of her misery. I think Grandpa taught him too well how to keep living and loving life.

I could go on about how devoted my grandfather was to my grandmother, but I'll just say that he spent his life living every minute for her. Especially after she had a stroke. Throughout his last four years, he exhausted every breath, every muscle fiber, every thought and smile and laugh supporting, encouraging, and nurturing her. She was his universe. We were blessed and graced with his bright-eyed, smiling, joyful, comforting presence for more years than we probably deserved, and we never had to see his health decline. He was physically vital and mentally vibrant to the end. While his heart may have ached, we never had to see him suffer in pain.

In early October 1997, he simply went to sleep on Earth and woke up singing a Danish song, dancing on streets of gold. He was reunited with his darling wife in 2002, and he'll be there to greet Henry, too, if that damn dog ever dies.