Thoughts on Grandpas

When you're eight years old, your grandpa is your hero.

I know not all of you have or had a grandfather worthy of that title, and for that I'm sorry. Fatherlessness (and grand-fatherlessness) is a huge problem, in part because it clouds our view of our heavenly Father. But for those of us who have been blessed with healthy families, a grandfather in the eyes of a grandson is a legend.

His legendary status was solidified for me one fateful summer afternoon that he took me fishing. Our family owns a cabin on a secluded Canadian lake, and it was a perfect day for some lake trout. That said, I--being eight--was not particularly interested in catching fish but rather jumping from rock to rock.

I don't remember how I slipped, only that I did. I was standing on a small rock ledge next to the water. I probably wasn't paying attention and walked right off the edge, because I didn't hit my head or scrape my back. It was one second on dry land and the next... swallowed up.

The interesting thing is that as quickly as it happened, it also UNhappened. Before I even realized how I fell or that I fell, I was standing on dry ground--dripping and spluttering. My grandpa had somehow teleported (in my eyes) the 30 or 40 feet distance separating us to pull me out of the ice cold water and set me back to standing on the rock. I couldn't have weighed more than 100 pounds at the time, but it made a huge impression on me: my grandpa is a legend.

A few weeks ago, my grandpa, Walt Hagsten, passed away at the age of 94. At that age it's not really about a cause of death anymore, but he had choked on a piece of food, developed pneumonia, and died. All this only a week or two before I was scheduled to leave Florida and visit Minnesota, his home. 

Even though you come to expect these things when a person is nearing their triple digit birthday, death is still a shock. A friend who happens to be more familiar with death than I described it as an absence. The person who died is no longer here, and they aren't coming back. You learn to live life without them.

Somewhat morbidly, I've thought more about death since becoming a parent than any other time in my life put together. I will not always be here to take care of this little human whom my wife brought into the world. Neither will this human always be here for me to enjoy, play with, watch grow up, walk down the aisle, have children of her own. It's distressing and feels broken, somehow. My grandpa was supposed to see another great-grandbaby. I am supposed to have grandchildren to enjoy, someday. (But what if!?) Death is not supposed to happen. It's like an unexpected inconvenience that somehow teleports you into another dimension, away from everyone you love, and you from them. "Surprise! Your vehicle, your body, has broken down. Now say goodbye to everything and everyone you've ever known."

But it really isn't. 

For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory." - 1 Corinthians 15

God's promise to us is that he will swallow up death forever, that he will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth (Isaiah 25:8).

Death is not the end.

My grandpa, who pulled me out of a lake 20-some years ago, also has a heavenly Father who has and will pull HIM up out of the grave. One handed. Without breaking a sweat. And this heavenly Father will then swallow up the swallower--death itself. And there'll be no more mourning or crying or pain. Somehow God wipes it all away. Death isn't the end. I'm not saying that it doesn't or shouldn't hurt anymore. But knowing that even death is not exempt from "this too shall pass" kind of makes it a little easier to swallow.

The fact that not everyone will get to experience this resurrection is deeply troubling to me, and part of the reason we're going to Bulgaria. There are people there who don't know Jesus. There are also people who have heard of Jesus but don't know him--they think he came to die in order to help them be a better person (not so, by the way). They need to hear this good news, too. They need to know that death needn't be the end for them either. 

So we go, because we have work to do while we are here. And someday, we too will pass. 

But death is not the end.