My Gramps

Twenty five years ago today, I lost one of the most important people in my life, my Gramps. If you have ever been a student in my class or are one of my inner circle, you know that this was one of the great sadnesses of my life. There is so much joy in my childhood, special memories, stories, stolen moments in time... long gone but never forgotten… and so many of them include this sweet man I simply referred to as my Gramps.

When I was little, my Gramps was big. In hindsight he wasn’t, he was only about 5’5, but in my eyes he was a giant. My father revered this man and I truly believe that my Dad’s love for his father was such a gift to me. Even though my Dad was a successful officer in the Air Force, there was never anyone mightier, anyone more respected, anyone greater who he adored more than his father. When my Dad needed advice, encouragement, wisdom, or simply a sense of balance and clarity, he talked to his Dad. From the moment I can remember, I saw this in my father. I saw his love and admiration and I felt it in all that he did and in the relationship that they shared.

I have so many snapshots frozen in time of my Gramps and I. We called Union City home. This was where my Gramps lived and where we spent time in the summers. If I painted a picture of these snapshots they would include a lot of grease, dirty fingernails, a blue uniform, boston baked beans and coke. My Gramps owned a gas station in the center of town. When we went home, we spent a great deal of time there and my Dad often “worked” helping out at the station. To most this might not seem special but I thought it was wonderful! The smell of gasoline, the grease, the laughter of my Gramps, his best friend Everett, and my Dad, and my Gramps letting me run the cash register...all of these memories a favorite part of my childhood.

I remember when I was about 12. I stayed with my Gramps for 2 weeks while my family traveled across the country getting ready to move to England. Every single day, my Gramps would come home for lunch and he and I would eat hot dogs with mustard and onions, homemade cracklins, and a coke. After lunch he would often take me back to the station with him and I would work the register and he would pay me in boston baked beans and coke or we would go for ice cream after dinner. Those two weeks will forever stick in my heart and my head as amazing.

When my Dad died, my Gramps was crushed. I remember so many moments during that week of looking at this giant and not knowing how to even begin to love him. I had so much pain of my own, but the greatest of all being the complete sadness of my Gramps. The bond he and my father had was immeasurable and when my Dad died, a piece of my Gramps was forever lost. At the memorial at the cemetery I remember the feeling of my Gramps as they did the 21 gun salute, each time the shots went off his body responded as if he himself had been shot. When the KC-135 flew over and tipped its wing, and as you heard it approach, my Gramps shook from head to toe and I knew in those moments that my Gramps and I would forever be bonded by this tragedy. He needed me and I truly needed him.

After my Dad died we spent a great deal of time with my Gramps. My Mom actually moved us to Ohio just to be near him. My Gramps not only loved and adored my Dad but he truly loved my Mom as if she were his own daughter. The way he treated my Mom, the love and affection he showed her, and in turn the adoration she had for him… it was incredibly special and I consider my Mother incredibly lucky to have had this amazing bond with both of my Dad’s parents. My Mom knew how important my Gramps was to us and that we needed him and in turn that he needed us.

When I was little my Gramps called me Skeeter or Skeets and as I grew up he called me Kris or Krissy. To this day, my family and my brother are the only people that call me Kris. I prefer it this way, somehow it seems okay when they call me this, but when anyone else does it bothers me. The Sunday before my Gramps died, I came home from college to visit him. At Christmas time we discovered that my Gramps had cancer. It was very aggressive and so within about two months I was saying my final goodbye. I remember this day like it was simply yesterday. I remember exactly what I wore, I remember the warnings I got that he would not know who I was, and I remember walking into the family room and my Gramps smiling and announcing that his Skeeter was there. I had prepared myself for the sadness of this day and instead this day is truly one of the most joyful memories I have. I sat and held my Gramps’s hand, he rubbed my thumb with his thumb and he kept saying over and over at random times, “I love you Skeets.” I would tell him I loved him and he would smile my favorite cute Gramps grin. I remember my great Aunt Wilmadene asking me who was going to give me away when I got married and feeling Gramps hand stiffen in mine and seeing tears run down his cheek. I assured him that it was okay and that he could sit with Dad and Uncle Jack at the wedding. I talked to Gramps several times that week. His wife Marge would hold the phone to his ear and I would talk and talk and he would listen and occasionally respond or chuckle and Marge would tell me he was smiling. I told him how much I loved him and how much my Dad loved him and how blessed I felt that he was my Gramps. The following Thursday morning I drove home from college after my first class. I left my roomates a note on the wipe erase board that my Gramps was going to die that day and I left. When I arrived home I got a call from my Mom that my Gramps was gone. On this day I lost a piece of my heart.

There are people that forever touch your life, people that forever change who you are and how you feel. My Gramps was one of those people. My Gramps loved me with a fierceness and an adoration that I cannot even put into words. My Gramps and I shared an incredible bond. In each other, we were able to find solace and able to share the joys and sorrows of loving and living without my Dad. My Gramps will forever be one of the greatest loves of my life.

Selfless Sisters

This past weekend we celebrated the life of my Grams. My mother’s seven sisters, many of their children, their children’s children, her aunt, uncle, and cousin came from all over the United States to celebrate this day. What is even more amazing, is that because my mother is unable to travel, all of these people came to Ohio from as far away as California and Florida. They created this loving circle around my mother and allowed her to share both her grief and her joy in having been the oldest daughter of Paul and Margaret Cramer. The selflessness of this act leaves me as her child, more humbled than I can ever put into simple words. I spoke at the celebration of my Grams’s life simply sharing a letter I had written to her. My letter sums up best my love and adoration for this amazing woman and for the 8 women who continue to walk in the shadow of her footsteps, exemplifying all that she was and all that she dreamed for each of them to be. I am a better, stronger, more faithful person because I have these amazing people as role models. If I ever doubt the blessings or grace that God has shown me, I can look at this picture of them and be reminded that my Army is mighty.

Dear Grams,

As I think back over the last 47 years of my life, so many memories in my heart come with this vivid picture of you beside them. Even as one of 19, I knew that you loved me and you thought I was special. I also knew that you loved the other 18 and thought they were special too. This was your way, this was who you were, and your kind ways and your sweet heart gave everyone you touched a special sense of warmth and ease.

My very first memory of you, I was three years old. We had come to visit you in La Habra and I had fallen asleep in the car on the way there. My parents left me in the car sleeping (what were they thinking?) and I woke up startled. I looked up and you were peeking through the car window at me. I looked at you with big eyes and you started giggling that Grams giggle we all know and love, and I knew I was safe. I remember being in the bathtub in Merced and you were giving me a bath, and you taught me how to make huge soap bubbles with my hands in the bathtub. You would giggle and pretend you had no teeth and I remember thinking you were so silly and I had such an overwhelming love for you. And over those first few years, there are so many bubble memories. There were special moments just like that, simple things that stand out to me as who you were and remind me that the most special moments in life often have no cost, but come from something as simple as making bubbles in the bathtub.

Over the years, as we grew up, I have so many fond memories of you and Gramps... visiting us in England, shopping for Doulton, hopping from antique store to antique store, and when Dad died. As a 15 year old girl who lost her Dad, what I saw in that first month after Dad died was such a beautiful gift from the two of you. Mom was suddenly a widow and the Mother of two teenagers, and scared. And the two of you, you were more loving and supportive of her than you probably ever realized any one even noticed. You stayed with us for weeks and simply loved and supported your daughter and honestly, this is one of my fondest memories of you. In these moments, I knew and witnessed who you were as people, as loving parents, and as my grandparents.

As an adult I grew to know you and how sweet and silly you could be. I remember you at my wedding playing peekaboo behind the flowers, telling me your hair was resting when we were at the cabin in Canada, and watching you give Joshua a bath in the sink and singing to him. When Grandpa died, in spite of your sadness, you showed such a loving grace. I still smile at the picture you and Gail sent me with your hair wrapped in a towel waiting for me to come fix it for you. You and Gail giggled and giggled when I got there and were quite amused with your antics. Watching the love between you and Gail that day and then the next day at breakfast when you so proudly got to show off your girls to the whole place, it was truly such a blessing. I remember when you came to visit asking you about how you met Gramps. You smiled the sweetest smile and giggled and proceeded to tell me the “scandalous” story of how you would get ready early so you could stand in the window and wave when he walked by. You thought this was quite brazen and the sweetness and innocence of this story demonstrated your total adoration for my Gramps.

On this day Grams, I know how proud you would be of your eight beautiful and loving daughters, and the 7 who selflessly came here to Ohio, so that my Mom could celebrate your life with them. This selfless act, these seven loving women and my amazing and wonderful Mom...these 8 people represent who both you and Gramps were as people. In all that they do, in all that they are, they are each in their own way carrying on your legacy of a walk with Christ. Through each of them, your love and grace resonates in the love they have for their own children. The blessing of the gift of Christ in their hearts and the heart of this family continues on through each of them.

Grams, the memories you have given me, all of us, are priceless. I do not remember a moment in my life where you were not loving and kind, where you were not sweet and silly, where you were not absolute goodness. For my whole life, I will know that I have been blessed you are part of me, that you are part of my story. I will know that knowing you, I have seen kindness and love in its purest most selfless form. And although you were often quiet, and often didn’t say a lot, in your silence you spoke more words than you could ever know. As you meet our heavenly Father, please know that every person you touched is better having loved, and having been loved, by you.




Love,

Kristy