Today is a sad day. We are saying goodby to my wife’s grandfather, “Poppop,” who died on Sunday. He was 93. It’s also a day filled with peace and gladness. Poppop is with his savior, and with Nana once again.
I always enjoyed hanging out with Poppop at family gatherings. He loved to talk about the Bible and about theology, even though we were men of different generations, with different sensibilities. In his own story, he was a classic 1950’s Plymouth Brethren guy. Years ago he gave me his copy of Dispensational Truth, an original 1918 edition, with its beautiful poster-length charts of history from creation to the end times. I cherish that gift. If we ever got into it, I think he would have been baffled by my reading of Daniel, Revelation, and eschatology. I’m not sure he would have been prepared to discuss the history or hermeneutical methods of Dispensationalism.
But we never got much into that, because it wasn’t that important to the kind of relationship we enjoyed. We mostly talked about bigger things — grace, the puzzle of suffering, the prefiguring of Christ in the Old Testament (a Brethren favorite!), the importance of studying scripture diligently, the need for young men who are able to take leadership in the local church as teachers. (Yes, young “men” — debates about women’s roles also weren’t on the radar screen of our relationship.) I know that, particularly as he got older, Poppop could be somewhat irascible, stubborn and grouchy. But not with me. Most of all, he always encouraged me to keep at it, to keep studying, to keep serving faithfully.
I don’t regret at all the things we didn’t discuss. I regret that, as he became feeble, I didn’t make more effort to visit him outside holiday gatherings. I thought of doing that many times — just stopping by for a cup of coffee — and I never did. My great loss.
But now this reminiscence is in danger of becoming too serious, which isn’t really suitable, because Poppop was a master of the stupid joke. I do mean “the” stupid joke — he told the same one over and over again. Yet I always laughed, and now I find myself also repeating it (it involves a child named “Pooping Dog” — enough said).
Most of all, my memory is of Poppop at the table, surveying his children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren: “isn’t it nice that we can all be together as a family.” So one of my favorite parts of the Psalms seems appropriate as an epitath:
As for man, his days are like grass,
he flourishes like a flower of the field;
the wind blows over it and it is gone,
and its place is remembered no more.But from everlasting to everlasting,
the Lord’s love is with those who fear him,
and his righteousness with their children’s children —
with those who keep his covenant
and remember to obey his precepts. (Ps. 103:15-18).
Amen — it is so, let it be so.