My Grandpa Sam died on November 19. He was almost 90. This is what I read at his funeral.

"Emily," my Grandpa Sam would say, "I have something very important to tell you." It was always either one of two things.
"Stay the course!" he'd say sometimes.
"Muddle through," he'd say others.
I often pondered the relationship between these two seemingly disparate pieces of advice, until I realized they meant the same thing, and it was very wise.

Grandpa Sam gave me other advice, sometimes.
"Emily," he said, "I have a little advice for you. Wear some lipstick. The boys will notice you."
"Shut up, Sammy," said my grandmother.
"Let me talk, Ru," he said. "I'm just giving my opinion."

In college, I made up my own major. For a brief period, I was going to call it "God and Death." I decided I would attend divinity school, the better to research God and death, but not get ordained. Grandpa Sam got wind of this and misunderstood. It's the only time I can remember my grandfather calling me personally, as opposed to getting on the phone to say hello when my grandmother called.
"Emily," he said, "In this family we don't believe in God."
He was bringing me back into the fold. He was worried I was becoming a lapsed atheist.

He was far more supportive when I became an anarchist.
"I'm an anarchist, too!" he said.
An anarchist accountant.

He asked why I became self-employed.
"Because I am incapable of answering to anyone but myself," I told him. He laughed.
"You're just like me!" he said. "You're an entrepreneur."
It made me happy to follow in his footsteps. A self-employed anarchist atheist. Not bad.

He didn't like to say "I love you" but he'd say it. He'd say it and write it this way, "I love you, Emily. I don't have to say it for you to know it but I said it." And I always knew it.

Grandma Ruth told most of the stories, about when they were young, how they met, how they almost didn't end up together, how there was a time when she was with another guy.
"Sammy still gets so mad about that other guy," she'd say. "He still punches me in the arm and says, 'I can't believe you were with that other guy!'"
He told me once, about the time when she was with the other guy. "I thought I had lost Mother--I mean Grandma--forever, Emily, and I had my misery."
I'll never forget the way he said that. "I had my misery." I saw how he loved her.
I saw again, recently, how she loved him. He had gotten old and sick all at once, it seemed.
"He's not the same man," said my grandmother. "But he's still Sammy."

The last conversation I had with him was Halloween.
"I'm becoming a prehistoric animal," he said.
"Which one?" I asked. "A dinosaur? Or a woolly mammoth? A saber-toothed tiger? A mastadon?"
We shared a pleasure in the specific meanings of big words, listing nouns, places, ancient civilizations.
"A dinosaur," he said.
"What kind of dinosaur?" I asked. "A brontosaurus? A triceratops? A tyrannosaurus rex?"
"Yes, that one," he said.
I said, "Are you going to stay a tyrannosaurus rex or are you going to change back into a person?"
"I don't think I'm going to..." he searched for the word. This was only at the very end of his life. He was not a man who searched for words. He was a man who found them.
"I don't think I'm going to...do the thing that Darwin said."
"Evolve?"
"Yes, evolve. I don't think I'm going to."
I was amazed that unable to find the word "evolve" he still had Darwin. It took his body almost ninety years to reach its end, but I think it would have taken his mind nine hundred, nine thousand years. It was a strong, tough, healthy, sharp, sharp mind.

When I'd visit my grandparents in more recent years, I knew all the details of the stories they'd tell. "Well, you've been listening," he said. "You've been listening all this time!"
I was listening, Grandpa. Always. Thank you for all the stories, and for the life you lived, that begat all of our lives, and the love you gave.

Thank you for everything you gave all of us: the entrepreneurial spirit, the ability to persevere, the temper prone to explosion, the distrust of the state, the words, the words, the words. Thanks also for surviving the whole twentieth century, the years and years of hard work that helped buy the house I lived in, the camp I went to, the education I got, the freedom it affords me. Thanks for celebrating my accomplishments but telling me you'd love me even if I didn't do anything.

I know you didn't believe in God but I believe in many things, an anarchist afterlife with no leader, where the tennis court is always free and you can always have dessert. I know you were always cold here on this planet so I hope that where you are now you finally don't need a sweater. You stayed the course. You muddled through. You lived your life.

Goodnight, Grandpa Sam. Rest in peace.

Labels: death, eugoogly, family, funeral, Grandpa Sam