Tarkblog

Unfortunately, my grandfather passed away a couple of weeks ago. He was 80, and had just celebrated his 60th wedding anniversary.

I’m glad his bout with brain cancer was short; in fact, from the time they found out he had it I don’t believe he was aware of having it or much of what was going on. He passed away in his sleep at a nursing home about 5 miles from the house he had lived in for the past 50+ years. He was “buried” in a tomb at a mausoleum within just a few miles of his farm. They chose the specific tomb many years ago, before the building was even built, because it faced the farm. I thought that was neat.

It’s sad, but it happens. He was old, and had thoroughly enjoyed life. The pastor at eulogy noted that he had traveled to over 50 countries on both vacation and agricultural related trips.

Of course, now my grandmother has a tough time ahead dealing with this loss. She is by no means uncapable of taking care of herself (the woman has a masters degree in Home Economics, so she knows how to maintain a household), but it’s going to be much more lonely now. My mom lives only 10 minutes away from her, so there will always be someone close by, but on a day to day basis I’m sure it will take time to adjust.

And while it’s a sad thing, I did get to see a lot of people I hadn’t seen in many years, including some cousins who look almost exactly like me (I wish I had gotten a picture).

But, we did get a picture of the Tennis family all dressed up. So there’s that. Sorry for the lack of realism in my smile, but we were facing the sun.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 11th, 2006 at 6:48 pm and is filed under Random Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.