Adieu

Saying goodbye can be hard. When I visit with my family it's hard for me to leave, or to see them leave. It's even hard for me to leave Peter at Primary, even though it's temporary. On Saturday we said goodbye to my grandpa. It was a very sweet service. I learned a lot about my dad's dad. I never knew that my grandpa built the building that housed his dental practice in Long Beach California. That's interesting, but more so is that he invited his father and father-in-law to help as well. That building provided retirement funds for both. He was a hard worker. My dad shared the following story:

Related to work, I remember one project my dad undertook while I was home from college one vacation. He had a storage shed that had stood at the back of our property for some years. It was falling apart and needed to be demolished. As we took it apart, we found that under the floorboards a six-inch layer of humus had accumulated, the work, my dad said, of rats. As a result, this project consumed many hours. I was young and active. I took pride in the fact that I was tearing off more boards and moving more shovels full of dirt than my dad. At noon we took time off for lunch. Then I took a nap. Dad went back to work. At about two, I returned to the job that Dad had never left. By five, when the job was finally done, I was beat. Dad had not worked fast; he had just worked relentlessly. He never reprimanded me for slacking off. He just worked me into the ground.

While I miss my grandpa, I'm not weighed down by sadness. He lived a good life and it was his time to move on. We took Peter and Cooper to the funeral. I know that not everyone thinks it's appropriate to bring to children to a funeral, but we felt that it was important. We told Peter that Grandpa Alvin had died and that his spirit had gone to live with Heavenly Father while his body waited here for when he would be resurrected and his body and spirit would be reunited. It was a wonderful opportunity to teach him about the Plan of Salvation. Our goodbye to my grandpa is temporary. We will see him again. For the time being, he has work to do on his side on the veil, and we have work to do on ours.

This picture of me, Peter, and my grandparents was taken September of 2007.