My Grandpa

In reality, this is the part of last week I have really dreaded writing about. Last Tuesday, February 26th, while I was in Utah my Grandpa passed away. He was 90 years old and lived an amazingly full life. Although my family saw this coming, its never easy to lose a loved one. I have been very lucky to have all 4 of my grandparents up until this point. Fortunately, all his 6 kids and many of his 15 grandchildren were able to come visit with him, tell him that we all love him, and say goodbye.


My grandpa was one of the funniest people that I know. I feel so lucky to be his oldest granddaughter and was able to spend so much time with him while growing up. The picture above is from my wedding in 2005.....I was his only grandchild he got to see get married and I am honored he was able to celebrate that day with me. I have so many funny stories and memories about him that I will be sure to share with my kids one day about their funny Great Grandpa P. One of the traits that my Grandpa possessed was the ability to speak what was on his mind. Although this sometimes got him in trouble (especially with my Grandma), this is something I greatly admired about him.

This loss was definitely hard on me and being in Utah made it worse. I didn't get to say goodbye, but I am grateful that my last memory of him was at Christmas 2007 where he was the life of the party. Bryan and I were able to change our flights around to head back east early. It was nice to be at his memorial service with my entire family (and 195 other people....Gramps was well loved!). Although we were sad about his death, it was fun to share stories about him and hear his kids (my dad, aunts, and uncles) talk about things I had never known.

Being back at home and back to life has been hard too. Are we all supposed to just go back to work and move on with our lives? I find that I want to keep talking about him and thinking about him....maybe more often than I did when he was alive. I went for a run on Monday and for some reason after about 2 miles I just started crying.....running often brings out various emotions in me and that day I just felt like crying. I know Grandpa was with me on the run.

So God, please take care of my Grandpa. We all know he can be a lot to handle sometimes, but he is one man you definitely want to get to know! Tell him that we all love him and miss him very, very much.