In Loving Memory

Friday evening my Grandpa Reece passed away suddenly.  He was in relatively good health, for someone 82 years old.  We all agree though that Grandpa probably wouldn't of had it any other way.  No long suffering in a hospital or nursing facility for him.

 

This is one of my favorite pictures of Grandpa.  I think he looks so dapper with his hat, and that's about as close to a smile as he ever got in pictures.  This picture was taken when our little Benjamin Reece was born, and I'm going to tell you why we decided to honor Ben with his name.

The saying goes that blood is thicker than water, but Grandpa Reece proved that love is thicker than blood.  Reece was my mother's step-father and not related by blood with anyone in my family.  He had children of his own from a previous marriage and eventually grandchildren of his own kin.  But that didn't stop him being a father to my mother (married when she was a teen) and pretty much the only grandfather I've ever known, since my paternal grandfather passed away when I was eight.

My grandparents moved practically next door to us when I was around ten or eleven, so I was able to see them often.  Grandpa never tired of telling me how much he liked it when we'd wave and holler "Hi Grandpa!" when we went by and saw him outside.  He was always telling us stories too, about growing up up the McKenzie, serving in the Navy during the Korean War and his years in the logging and trucking industries.  My favorite story (probably because I was a horse-crazy little girl) was of a horse he had who liked to eat cherries.  He'd hand the horse 'x' amount of cherries and the horse would spit out the exact amount of seeds.

What I will always treasure though, and what I really wanted Ben to get from his name, was that Grandpa always made me feel special and beautiful.  From the time I was little up until the last time I saw him, he always told me how beautiful I was.  I literally can't think of a meeting when he didn't tell me how pretty and nice I was.  Whenever I'd call, he'd always ask what a pretty little girl was doing calling him.  And it was always sincere.  Always.  I'd hear second hand accounts about him praising my success to other people.  Grandpa would always tell me how proud he was of me.

Looking back, even when I was an easily embarrassed teenager, having Grandpa tell me every time he saw me how beautiful I was (clearly he was biased) was a gentle lift to my self esteem.  I never, ever heard him criticize me, though I admit I was a pretty easy child and didn't give my family much grief.  It was his role as Grandpa to lift me up.

So Ben, I hope that someday you will remember how much power simple words can have.  When you have your own children and grandchildren someday, I hope you tell them all the time how proud you are of them, how beautiful/handsome they are and how much you love them.  Because I don't need any physical mementos of my Grandpa Reece, they're all etched on my heart.