It's not hard to see why- my grandfather was a guy that touched a lot of people in a lot of positive ways. He was involved in so many things and always had a hand to help. He told stories, brightened people's days, and took risks that made for great memories. For example, once we were vacationing in the mountains and he saw a bear outside. Normal people would stay inside, hoping the bear would just go away. My grandfather ran outside and started hooting and hollering, and trying to get a picture of the bear.
Another example of the kind of man he was is that once a foreign family moved to his state from their home country. They didn't know a word of English, knew nothing about how to go about living in the United States, and had no points of contact. My grandfather didn't live near them, but he knew someone they knew in their home country, so they called him up. He apparently didn't understand a word they said, but he drove for hours to try to find them anyway. In the end he drove them everywhere they needed to go, helped with homework, helped with English, and overall just got them assimilated so that they could function as a family in America.
There are many more stories, but I won't bore you.
The point is that because of things like the above stories, the rows of the church at his memorial service were filled. And all of us
What this funeral taught me was:
1. People remember you if you are kind to them and help them in
profound ways
2. People remember you if you are interesting.
3. It is always better to do things rather than sit down and play
video games or watch TV
After hearing about what my
grandfather did during his life I have some new goals. To help more people, to
have more experiences, and to not spend so much time doing nothing. Or doing nothing
alone.
I don’t even want to change so
that people will remember me after I’m dead. I want to change because people
will love me while I’m alive, just as they did my grandfather. He was a very
influential and loved man, and I think his life was the fullest it could have
possibly been.
It’s a different world now, one
where you have to get yourself on a path long before you can achieve your
goals. But I can still have fun. And I can still touch those around me. I can
live up to my grandfather’s legacy.
I am sorry you lost your grandfather but you are right it sounds like he lead a full life full of experiences. That's what I want, a life made up of experiences. Whenever I give myself a reason not to do something I am going to try to remeber your story of him and the bear. Sometimes you should just do things.
ReplyDeletei know you’ve been hearing it for some time but i’m sorry for your loss, love
ReplyDeleteyour grandfather sounded like a kickass dude. i would cry if a bear was a country near me, as i have a tendency of being a total wuss.
it depends, babe. i’d live my life writing away, typing in little fonts. i want people to remember my words when i die. i want them to remember me as this happy, chirpy, fun brunette that just seems to lose sense of the world when she has a medium to write in – because that is me. that’s what i want them to remember.
you are your own legacy. you’re amazing. the most beautiful thing about life though is that in some way, you’ll be remembered no matter how little people know about you – there’s this girl in my childhood, i don’t remember her name well – but she was so pale that it was striking and i always associate paleness in description with her, rosy, flushed beautiful pudgy cheeks. it’s amazing how the human mind works. it’s just impossible to not be remembered, because people might not remember you, or remember your face or your name, but they will remember the smallest thing in you, and you think it doesn’t mean much, but it means quite a lot. the things you do in passing, thinking they mean nothing can mean everything and i think that’s something that most people don’t understand
xo Sam Lupin