Grandpa How-Do: 1923 - 2012

My mom texted me on Sun 9/2 at 230am to call her. I was at a bar in San Diego seeing bands and didn't call her back until the next afternoon. But I already knew.

Grandpa had died on Saturday at around 10:30pm.

The funeral was on Wednesday in their small town outside of KCMO. All the cousins and aunts and uncles were there. So was nearly everyone in town. It was overwhelming how many people came out for the visitation, mainly because since the Labor Day Holiday, the newspaper offices were closed and the obit was never put in prior to the service. So this was all via word of mouth.

Since grandpa served in WWII, he was given a full military burial with a 21 gun salute. I nearly lost it when the bugle started playing TAPS. There were three enlisted soldiers near the grave site, two of whom presented my grandmother with a folded flag.

The 21 gun salute came from 3 round each of 7 old men from the American Legion.

After, we went back to the church for lunch, then to the house to socialize before heading home.

It was kinda weird being in the house because all of grandpa's stuff was there...toothbrush, walker at the top of the stairs, pillow on the recliner, just like he had never left.

At the service, the pastor told a story:

He had been to the house several times over the past year to visit with my grandparents. My grandmother would often stay downstairs next to the cot where my grandpa slept. He would wake up and say, "Go to bed, Marilyn." And she'd go upstairs to bed.

The night Walt died, the pastor was at the house, and Marilyn was sitting next to Walt, holding his hand. He was in a lot of pain and the hospice nurses were trying to get his pain under control. When it was under control, my grandma said, "I'm going to go upstairs to bed now, Walt." And she did. And then he died shortly after.

I teared up in the church when the pastor told us this story, and I am tearing up a little bit now typing this out.

At the funeral, Uncle Fred was the only one who spoke, and he told a funny story about the first time he met Walt, which was at a Mizzou football game back in...'76?

A lot of nice things were said later on at the house, and there were several collages of photographs spanning his lifetime. The funniest being one of him sunning on a lawn chair in red swim trunks and a white shirt. Funny because he NEVER went out in the sun and was actually extremely pale for as long as I can remember. He did, however, until the end, have the hairline of a 30 year old. Thick, white, smooth hair that hadn't receded a single inch.