And I delivered a eulogy...

After my grandpa's recent decline in health, weeklong stay in hospice and death, I had lots of weird thoughts and sadness. I thought he'd be here for my wedding. In case anyone is curious (all two of you) here is his Eulogy. "But I'm just an old carpenter, what do I know?" He'd say and wink at me. Then go back to scrutinizing some project he had completed.   My grandpa was an old carpenter. He was also my hero. He did so many more things than I even knew about. I think first and foremost, he was a musician. You couldn't ask him about an instrument without him plucking around on it for you. He attempted building his own guitar when he was younger. He showed me how to do lots of stuff that I could never do myself. He tried to show me how to play the banjo, which is about like showing a dog how to do a card trick. I never did get it right. It seemed to be his passion out of all the instruments. And he was good at it. My childhood was full of his generation playing music at holiday functions. I think my grandpa always had a song in his heart at any given time. Most of my life his hearing wasn't spectacular, but he could still always play, and he played by ear. Even a few months back when he was playing a guitar, even though he was not in the greatest of health, I used the digital tuner to get the guitar in tune for him, and he played on it, and then corrected himself. He's the first to acknowledge his own mistake and the first to go about correcting it. As far as Grandpas go, he was full of funny sounds, silly faces, and patience enough to let you sit on his lap and show him stuff. Even when you got too big and heard someone else tell you "you're too big to sit on Grandpa." He was a good person to ask questions of. If he didn't know the answer, he would just say so. If he DID know the answer, he'd tell you. In a roundabout way. With maybe a story about life Up North, in the Navy, or references to people you will never meet, places you probably haven't been, and generally a lot more information than you were hunting for in the first place. You could consider yourself wiser for asking, or baffled by the excess information.   I think I'm the only girl in my family who got to work beside him on a remodeling project. Most of my male relatives can attest to the fact that he was a perfectionist, and sometimes in his pursuit of perfection, he would saw a board that was 1/16 of a inch too short. In which case, he grumbles at the board, blames the tape measure, curses the saw, and cuts another board. I think its one of the greatest compliments to have him say: "Krista is a really good plumber." But he was impressed I could plumb my bathroom, and he left the trickier stuff like plastering and installing the mirror cabinet to himself.   He was an animal lover and I think every pet I've ever had near him liked him. He used to garden with my dog Casey, he did some of the bathroom remodeling with my cats Angel on his stepladder and Baxter observing, and he liked to hear my parrot Loki talking. Loki would always bring out a story in him about the navy ship, because they had a parrot on board, and a monkey, and a dog, rescued from some islands. A true testament to his soft side for animals. But with Grandpa, anything could have a story connected to it. It was the best part of talking to him. I think the biggest tribute we can make to his generation is to share these stories, and I will continue to the rest of my life. I love you grandpa.