Brave Soldier

My older brother and I used to infuriate my grandpa. We were thick as thieves and we knew how to push his buttons and boy did we like too, even though he was very scary when he was mad. Retired career military...yeah, he was scary. But still, it was fun. One trip to Florida for some reason - and I'm sure this ended up being grandpa's big regret in life- he let Jason and I ride together in his van with him and grandma. Well, we had him so mad that he was ready to run off the road. Or abandon us at the nasty McDonalds where we stopped for a bathroom break. Good thing grandma was there too, or he probably would have.

Gramps. So many happy memories tied up in one man. He loved licorice, not the sweet red kind. He liked black licorice. You know what, so do I? He loved icecream sodas, he loved sweet snacks, and in the winter he liked to drink a cup of hot jello. I can't imagine doing that now, much less allowing my kids to have it, but we liked nothing better than to down our mugs of steaming hot strawberry flavored sugar water while he told us stories about Giussepe (Ju-sep-ee) the rabbit and Foxy the Fox. We loved those stories. 

The older we got, the stories got even better. Fascinating stories from World War II. Occupying castles, commandeering vehicles, capturing German's who were armed when he wasn't...stories that would make an incredible war movie. Gramps even had to smuggle his pregnant wife across borders in the trunk of his car. That's what he gets for falling in love with his beautiful secretary, who also happened to be an "enemy alien" since she was Hungarian. Who could know that their war-time marriage would last for 66 beautiful years?

Gramps and Grams skiing in Germany in 1945.

In the days, months really, as his health really began to fail- after all, 96 is a remarkable age to live to- as our soldier-hero needed help to eat, to bathe, to dress, to complete even the most basic of tasks, another group of brave soldiers stood at attention ready to serve, and love and care for the Colonel in his final days. It's a hard thing to care round the clock for the one who once cared for you. 

But with tireless devotion, wife, daughters, sons, grandchildren, all with loving dignity and respect, cared for Grandpa. You are his living legacy, he is so proud. 

Grandpa was always giving orders, not taking them. But for one Person - Jesus. I can imagine for a man who has lived through war and seen what he has seen in his life, knowing and believing that Jesus is with you wherever you go is what gets you through. And that is what he taught us, that we are never alone, Jesus is always with us. 

And it does help to know that beautiful truth as your loved one walks through the valley of the shadow of death. That, Jesus was with him. He wasn't afraid. He wasn't alone. Always a brave soldier, he marched...hand in hand with his Savior.