Ode To Grandpa

Love is too small a word.

Although I was able to stand up and give a eulogy at my grandfather’s funeral this past Sunday, due to my own tears I didn’t get to say everything I wanted to say at the time. I hope that one day I’ll be able to sit down with my children and read this with them so that they will understand how much this man meant to me. This man who they will never have the chance to know. And let me make this clear right now, I really did say much of what follows, because I believed it was the best way to pay homage to the man I loved so dearly.

And yes, everyone there did laugh until they cried.

—

My grandpa was special.

He was the best of men, the kind of man who seemed to love the entire world with his big heart and, of course, his even bigger mouth. He loved everyone he ever met and would give away the shirt off his own back if he thought, even for a moment, that you might need it more than he did. And then he’d tell you it looked better on you anyway. He could pull a rainbow out of a cloudy sky and never, ever let anyone or anything stop him from doing what he thought was right just because he might be wrong.

And most of the time what he thought was right.

My grandpa would also be the first (second, third and last) person to tell you that he was no good at solemnity, sadness or even something as seemingly simple as respectful silence. If he were here today he would probably already be complaining that this was taking too damn long and that I should hurry up and shut up because he was hungry. So, in order to show him how much I loved him and how much he meant to me during my life, I want to tell you a few stories about my grandpa. You see, the only way I can think of to pay my respects to the man who helped raise and shape me into the man I am today is by making all of you laugh until you cry.

Which I think would really make him happy.

To start off, I want to tell you about how this wonderful man helped educate me. You see, my grandpa taught me many things while I was young, many of which I didn’t understand until I was much older. But while I was a very young boy he really made an effort to teach me all about math. He would spend hours with me at some of his favorite places teaching me the finer points of addition, subtraction, multiplication, fractions, percentages and everything else a young schoolboy would need to know about math. And sometimes, just to test me, he would give me pop quizzes when I least expected them. Like while we were doing the most mundane things in the world. Standing in line for example.

“Are you a smart boy?”
“I think so, grandpa.”
“If you’re so smart, what’s the payoff on a $2 bet for a 4 to 1 horse?”
“Um… If you bet $2 then you get 4 times that plus the original bet back so… that would be $10!”
“Smart boy. OK, I’ll take ‘Losing My Shirt’ for $2 across the board.”

He also taught me a lot of games.

From chess to rummy to monopoly, he seemed to know them all. One of his favorites was a game he called ’52 Pick-Up’ and he would try to play it with me all the time.

“Hey kid, want to play a card game with your grandpa?”
“Sure!”
“OK, it’s called 52 Pick-Up.”
“Cool! How do you play?”
“It starts off easy.”
[Grandpa flings an entire deck of cards all over the floor]
“All you gotta do is pick them up.”
“OK, I’ve picked them all up, now what?”
“Now you gotta get them all INCLUDING the jokers!”
[cards are flung]
“OK, I’ve got them all again but this isn’t as much fun as I thought…”
“Well, then I guess you don’t want to make it to the bonus round…”
“There’s a bonus round?!”
“Oh yeah.”
“How do I get the bonus?”
[cards are thrown across the room]
“Now you’ve got to pick them up in order!”
“What order?”
“Numerical. But I won’t tell you which suit you need to get first.”
“Oooo, tricksy.”

Grandpa was also the joker.

He was the funny guy you could always count on to say the absolute worst thing in the world at the absolute worst time. I don’t know how, but he seemed to have a sixth sense for discovering the perfect time and place to say the most embarrassing thing, and yet make everyone within earshot laugh including the person he just humiliated. Nothing could stop him from telling a joke, even… no, especially, if it was a bad one in bad taste. To his way of thinking it was even better if the joke was completely inappropriate to the situation. Like the time I introduced him to my new girlfriend, who just happened to be blonde, and he took that opportunity to tell the now infamous, “Pregnant Blonde” joke.

“Grandpa, I’d like you to meet my new girlfriend…”
“What happened to the last one?”
“Grandpa…”
“Say, you’re pretty. Much prettier than the last one, anyway.”
“Grandpa, be nice.”
“What? I just complimented her!”
“Just be nice, OK?”
“Fine. Hey, pretty girlie. Wanna hear a joke?”
“Grandpa…”
“I’m being nice, I’m telling her a joke. Now listen, a redhead, a brunette and a blonde are in the gynecologists’ office when they start trying to figure out the sex of their babies amongst themselves before getting their sonograms.”
“Grandpa, this really isn’t the right time.”
“Nonsense. So, the redhead thinks for a moment and says, ‘I know that I’m going to have a boy because I was on top during the sex.’ Hey, you look like an athletic girl. I bet you would…”
“Grandpa!”
“Right. Back to the story. So the brunette thinks for a moment and says, ‘Well, I guess I’m going to have a girl then, because I was on the bottom.’”
“Grandpa, I don’t really think my girlfriend wants to hear…”
“Quiet, I’m almost to the punch line and I don’t want you to mess it up for this pretty girl.”
“But…”
“Quiet boy, or I’ll show her your baby pictures. Right. After hearing what her two new friends had to say about their babies, the blonde woman bursts into tears. When her friends ask her what’s wrong she says through the tears, “I think I’m going to have p-p-puppies!”

I think that particular girlfriend lasted two whole months.

My grandpa was also a very smart man who never failed to see things from a perspective that most other people couldn’t, or wouldn’t. There are many examples of my grandpa’s outside-the-box thinking but one of the best that I can recall is his method for garnering affection from his grandchildren. You see, Grandpa always told me that I was his favorite grandchild but that I shouldn’t tell anyone else so that they wouldn’t get upset. Well, one day I discovered that he had been telling each of his grandchildren that they were his favorite, but because we were all sworn to secrecy we never compared notes. When I confronted grandpa with this he looked me dead in the eye and, without an ounce of shame or guilt, said, “Well, of course I tell them that they’re my favorite! That way they don’t get jealous of you!”

Smart man, my grandpa. And damn quick.

The truth is that grandpa taught me a whole lot about life. No, that’s not quite right. Grandpa didn’t just teach me things, he didn’t have me simply memorize books, learn my multiplication tables or any other seemingly ‘smart’ things that I could have learned from anyone else. He did something far more important and profound.

He taught me about living.

He taught me to see things differently than other people and to relish that difference. I learned from him how to have a good time at the worst of times, how to laugh when the whole world was crying, and how to be myself without fear of what someone else might think. He taught me how to see the humor of everyday life and, more importantly, how to point it out to others so they could laugh with me. He taught me to include everyone in on the joke, even the person or people you were playing the joke on. From him I learned how to smile and laugh no matter what might come my way in this life. But most of all, he taught me the wonder, the absolute joy, one can find just spending time with those you love.

And the knowledge that I will never spend another moment with him breaks my heart.

I will miss him more than these words can ever convey, more than all my tears will ever show. But, because he was who he was, I want to end this eulogy in a way he would probably really enjoy. In a strange way, I truly believe this will be the best prayer we can possibly say for him and I expect that wherever it is that he is going now there will be much rejoicing upon his arrival. I’ll start this just the way he would have, but I’m going to let all of you finish it on your own, in your own head, during a moment of silence. And so, to help speed him on his way to his reward let’s all bow our heads in silence and say what I am going to refer to forever more as The Grandpa Prayer;

“A guy walks into a bar…”