A few hours after the news was broken to the family, the kids drove up to Logan to be with my dad and his mom. It was a somber experience, but we can all take solice in the fact that we will see my grandfather again someday. He is now in heaven watching over us all. He is amazing and will always be remembered. My heart goes out to my loving grandmother. They were married for 72 years and they were very good to and for each other. I always liked to watch them when we visited. I hope that when I get married, I can have the same love for my spouse over the years that my grandparents had for each other. We were all sitting around talking to my grandma and she made a comment that will always stick with me. She said, "We never made a decision without consulting the other one. That's when things start to go sour, if you don't include the other in the decisions." She's amazing and I love her. They are both such examples to me and I love them with all my heart!
Yes, my grandpa was 93, soon to by 94, but he was AMAZING! He was very independent. Still mowed his lawn and worked out in the garden at age 93. How many 93-year-olds do you know that do that? He still moved around like he was 70. You'd never know he was 93. He skied until he was 88 or 89 and would have continued had he not been told he needed to stop. He broke his leg a couple times from skiing, but that didn't stop him from hitting the slopes. He always had a smile on his face and never complained about anything. Sure, he gave his grandkids grief, always asking us if we were getting into trouble, but you know he loved you.
He and his wonderful wife, my grandmother, opened their home and cabin to their family every summer. I have been going to Bear Lake since I was born and I wouldn't want to spend my summers anywhere else. It's my favorite place. It's a safe haven for me and I look forward to those summers every year. It won't be the same without grandpa this year, but it will still be great. He would get out the four-wheeler, the trailer and the wave-runner for the grandkids. Over the past few years, we have had to try and get down there before him, because he now has 6 grown grandkids that can help with this sort of thing, but he still does it. Over the past couple of summers the grandkids have gone up and tried to talk him into letting us mow the lawn for him, in the dead of summer, so he isn't pushing a lawn mower in 95 degree weather. I asked him about it once and he told me, "If I don't do it, I just sit in my chair and rock all day." It was his way of getting out and doing things. And he was great at it. Such an example to me.
He had coffee every weekday at the Bluebird in Logan with his friends, talking about the different happenings of the world and the city of Logan. He was the 27th Mayor of Logan, a WWII vet and a wonderful husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather. He will be deeply missed. There aren't many like him. I love you grandpa!
In the words of my grandfather, "Any man can surely fight the battles of just one day. It is only when you and I add the burdens of two awful eternities, yesterday and tomorrow, that we tend to break down. It is not necessarily the experience of TODAY that disturbs one's peace of mind. It is most times the remorse or bitterness for something which happened yesterday and the dread of what happens tomorrow may bring.
Therefore, 'Don't spend your whole life, every day of it, always thinking about how what you do today's going to make tomorrow better. Think about it, at least sometimes, how today is pretty good.'
Let us, objectively, live one day at a time, TODAY, which belongs to each of us alone. For it has been said: 'Is the first day of the rest of our lives.'"
Chambers Whatever
