Goodbye Pop

Today we said goodbye to Matt's grandfather, "Pop". The funeral was at 10 am this morning. IT was your average funeral I guess you could say....flowers, good eulogy, all that. Pastor Leroy Gerner did the service, excellent job. We all went out for sushi tonight; most of us anyway. Myself, Matt, Don, Laura, Rick, Jurg, and Katie. It was a great time. We drank beer and ate sushi while revealing some of our favorite Pop stories. A "roast" for Pop you could say, without him being there. But in a way, he was there. That's just the way he would have wanted it. His loved ones together at dinner, sharing stories, laughing till they needed to wipe their eyes with a handkerchief.

Laughing all the pain away.

Pain from a hard week. Watching someone die slowly of cancer that eats you from the inside out. Pain from saying good bye to your Dad, your Father, your Grandfather, the one who raised you, believed in you, and sold caskets for a living so you could go to college and have shoes on your feet.

It was a great night. I felt that Pop was right there laughing along with all of us. We laughed so hard I think he heard us all the way from heaven.

I only knew you for about seven years Pop, but it was a fun seven years. You were a great guy. All the ladies in the retirement center loved ya, your family loved ya (even when you were a pain in the ass), your friends loved ya. And in the end, if a bunch of your loved ones can sit around at dinner and feel like you are still there, you must have done something right.

Surely. You did plenty of things right.