Goodnight, Grandpa

Remembering a man of gold

Eight days ago, on Monday morning, my mom called me. “Grandpa isn’t doing too well. We’re down to days, maybe weeks.”
I chewed on my lip as I thought about it. My mother, for all her medical experience, has never had a good sense of judgement on how much longer her father has. A blood vessel in his heart had burst when I was a newborn, and I’d spent the last three decades hearing that he was on borrowed time. When his memory started to fade and he slipped further into the thralls of dementia, my mom would say, “This might be his last Christmas, we don’t know how much longer he has left.” That began ten years ago. He continued steadily declining, but kept chugging along. I had learned to take my mom’s alarmist warnings with a grain of salt.
”I’ll see if I can come out after work on Thursday, but I won’t get there until late,” I said. It would be a six-hour drive each direction, and I had work during the week.

An hour later, I got a text:
The lady from hospice thinks Friday would be optimistic.

That changes things.
I left at noon that day, work be damned.
I held his hand until the sun set on Tuesday, and drove home in the dark.
He passed on Wednesday morning.

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I have a reputation as “the writer of the family”, but I didn’t expect to be asked to write the obituary. This is what I came up with:

Max Dean L— left his body on October 23rd, 2024. His accomplishments are many and varied, but as I write this, the only thing that comes to mind is his mischievous grin when he cracked an especially bad joke.
Max was born and raised in Republic, Washington. The loss of his older brother, Leo L—, shook the family, but Max remained close with his two younger siblings, Wes and Joy, and his mother, Iva, until her early passing when he was in college. In high school, he played basketball and football, and went on to Washington State University (go Cougs!) where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Mining Engineering. 
Max married Margaret (Peggy) T— in 1961, and celebrated the birth of his son, S—, in 1962, and his daughter, L—, in 1964. His career at the Knob Hill Mine ended with its closure, and the family relocated to Nevada, then Bishop, California. Upon retirement, Max and Peggy moved to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, where they have remained for the last thirty years.
Always an avid sportsman, Max played golf frequently and followed professional football. He attended St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, and spent much of his time following the stock market and monitoring his investments. 
He was known for being wickedly intelligent and an incredibly hard worker, but it was easy to forget his brilliance because his heart outshone everything else. He loved his family with a depth and devotion rarely found in humans, and as his granddaughter, I remember his warmth and silliness – always trying to make us kids laugh – more than I remember his intelligence. May we all be so humble. 
Max meets his father, mother, all of his siblings, and his favorite dog in the world beyond this one. He is survived by his wife, both children, seven grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren. His rumbling laugh and love of huckleberries lives on within his grandchildren.

And yet, I barely scratched the surface on the man.

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When I think of my grandpa, I don’t think of the breathing skeleton that I kissed goodbye. I don’t think of him crying for his mama, or asking if he was in trouble. I don’t think of the vacancy in his startling blue eyes. His soul was in the process of leaving; I’m glad I was there, but that was only the remnants of the man I knew.

When I think of my grandpa, I think of the color gold. I didn’t find out until after his passing that gold was his favorite color, and also what he mined for in his career.

I think of when he was in the hospital in 2021, nodding off as I read him a story I had written. When the doctor came in and asked, “You must be the granddaughter?” he immediately trumpeted, “My beautiful granddaughter!”

I think of all the times we went huckleberry picking when I was little, and he’d wander off and make low growls and grumbles. My grandma would whisper conspiratorially to me, “We’d better keep an eye out for the Grandpa bear!”

I think of the drives we took, and he would point to a field of cows and say, “Look, horses!”
”Grandpa, those are cows,” I would correct him with all the wordly wisdom of a six-year-old.
”What do you mean? They have four legs, and a head, and a tail… they’re horses!”
”No, cows have horns,” I would explain.
”Ohhhh, okay, cows have horns; now I get it.”
A few miles down the road, he’d point out more cows. “Look, no horns! They must be horses!”

When I think of my grandpa, I think of sneaking out for milkshakes and french fries, and his ritual slice of lemon meringue pie.

Max was a Gemini, a joker, a lover of things sweet-and-tart. He was a hobby geologist, stubborn as a mule, and too smart for his own good. But to me, he was my Grandpa Bear, and the color gold.

Max ages 5 and 65.