But it's not a world I'm able to use for one of my grandparents anymore.
Around a week ago, as I was celebrating my favorite team winning the Super Bowl, I got a call from my dad, stating that his father, my paternal grandfather, had passed away from complications of Alzheimer's disease. It wasn't a surprise; Elmer Smith had been in the care of a nursing home for almost a decade, and his cognition and lucid moments had been ebbing the whole time.
Two weeks ago, it looked like he was in his final days. So Hillary and I drove to Pikeville, KY to be with my family.
Elmer, my grandfather, my Pappaw, had been transferred to Pikeville Medical Center because he was no longer able to take food and water. There was no feeding tube.
By the end of the week, when Hillary and I arrived, he had been transferred back to the nursing home. Because he'd taken a slightly turn for the better, partly, but mostly because his Medicaid would no longer pay for him to remain in the hospital.
Though she'd never met him, Hillary had heard great things about my Pappaw from her own grandparents, who had been very close friends with him earlier in their lives. In fact, when I had told her grandfather, Ronnie Hensley, that Elmer Smith was my grandfather, he'd been astonished at the coincidence. But upon reflection, all of us acknowledge that such events are rarely coincidence at all, but the hand of God pushing things into place.
When we arrived at the nursing home, Pappaw wasn't awake. Apparently he hadn't actually been awake for a long time; my own parents had said they hadn't seen him open his eyes in over a year. Still, I spoke to him. I held his hand. I introduced Hillary, and told him about the two beautiful great-granddaughters he now had. Hillary spoke to him, and touched his face.
And he opened his eyes.
I'm not sure if there was anything behind those blue eyes, but they were open. He mumbled a few words. He even laughed, although I can't be sure if it was because of something one of us said or simply something in his mind. But it doesn't really matter, because I got to interact with him one last time.
When he passed last Sunday, Hillary and I took off from work to drive in for the funeral. But, after dropping off the girls at school and daycare, a band of snow slammed the area, and we were forced to stay in town. I had no peace about it for the whole day. How could I? Where can someone find peace in knowing they've missed the celebration of a life of someone so prolific?
Over a belated brunch, when we realized we couldn't brave the interstate in the weather, Hillary reminded me that Elmer Smith was not being laid to rest. In fact, he wasn't there at all. Elmer Smith knew Christ on a deep level, and had spent a large portion of his life preaching the Gospel to others in a little Primitive Baptist Church in their hollow of Blackberry, Kentucky.
Alzheimers had taken Elmer Smith's memories, withered his body, and dulled his mind. But his soul belonged to God, and everything else that had been taken from him had been completely restored. He was not only more whole than he had been in a decade; he was more whole than he had ever been on earth, even at the height of his youth.
It's comforting to know that I will see him again one day, in a way I never got to see him on earth. 'Old' was a word I'd reserved for my grandfather when I was a little boy. The next time I see him, 'old' will not even be in my vocabulary. But it's still not much consolation to those of us left here on earth, staring at footprints that seem so large, far too large for us 'young' people to fill.
I am thirty-three years old. I have two stepdaughters, six and five years old. I am a little younger than my dad was when my brother and I were the age of Faith, my oldest child. When I look at my father, he still seems the same to me that he was then, and sometimes I still feel like the same child who ran around in the hills of Turkey Creek. I don't feel as old as my dad seemed when I was Faith's age. He seemed almost like one of the Greek heroes of legend, able to do absolutely anything.
I certainly don't feel like a Greek hero, although I may be in the eyes of my kids. I can't ask them; it's not really a fair question, not to mention that they might not have any idea how to answer it. And it might simply take the context of years to really put something like that into perspective. No doubt, she at least sees me as old, even though I don't feel it.
When I was kid, growing up, and I didn't understand my parent's seemingly pointless motivations for making me go to bed or eat my greens or whatever, I'd roll my eyes when they'd say, "You'll understand when you have kids."
As the 'young' are apt to do, I thought they were too old to understand.
But they were right. With kids of my own, it all suddenly makes sense.
Maybe my own footprints are getting bigger all the time. Right now, when I compare them to the people who came before me, the old people, my footprints seem so small. But, to those younger than me, how do my footprints appear? When my time comes, will my footprints still seem small to me?
Elmer Smith was a humble man, but I think he had an idea just how large his footprints seemed to us young people.
I recall one summer, when I was a teenager, a family gathering at my parents' old house. Pappaw was there, in full health. There were maybe thirty people there, once all the sons and daughters and cousins and grandkids were counted. I remember, standing next to Pappaw, and saying, as I gestured to the clamor and excitement of all the extended family, "You know, Pappaw, all of this is your fault."
He laughed, and said something to the extent of, "I know. And I'm darn proud of it."
You're missed, Elmer Smith. We'll see you soon.
Elmer Smith in the US Navy, circa 1950, Korean War
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