Papa's gone.

For those of you who don't know, the only real grandfather I have ever had died today. He was my Papa. I am grieving but not in a way most people grieve. There are no horrible sobs or heartwrenching gasps. No, I grieve because I realize a great force of good and love has left our world. And I pray that someone is born who can fill the gap he leaves.

My grandfather is much the reason I am here today. When my father was out chasing buried treasure (literally) and making no money, my Papa would somehow magically appear on our doorstep with food for my family. When my father celebrated lying and deceit, my Papa honored an honest heart. That particular event nearly resulted in my death, but I will always regard it as a time where I did what was right and nearly paid the ultimate price for it.

My Papa. What can I say? He was flawed, sure, and that had as much to do with his culture and birth as anything. But even his flaws weren't without merit. He earned his stripes. He served in government for sixty years. He was almost a demigod in our small town. And still is. I can't afford the $700.00 for a ticket home to the funeral (gladly accepting donations) but I know what I would see if I went there. Hundreds of people will crowd that funeral to listen to him eulogized. Hundreds more will weep from where they are.

My Papa is with the Lord now. The Lord he honored even if he didn't always do it in the quote unquote 'right' way, it was the Lord he loved still. He died but his memories will echo for many generations. I will tell his stories to my grandchildren. How he used to be a father to me when my own failed in that. How he'd fetch me and we'd both go off and do maintenance on the creek that ran through his massive estate. How we'd build simple bridges and we'd clear brush and we'd do the things that men did. Mind you, this was the only time in my life where a man showed me what it meant to be a man. We'd sit and eat with his hired workers. Tomato sandwiches, cold sweet tea and potato chips was our fair.

He had odd little ways of blessing us, his grandchildren. We'd go to Shoney's and he'd order a hot fudge sundae for himself and would then take a single bite only to let us finish it. He loved his son, my father, when my father didn't deserve love. He stopped letting my father hurt him, emotionally, but he never gave up on him. He loved all of his grandchildren like they were his own.

When my mother heard her father had passed she was eight months pregnant with me. She went across the road in the cold to my Papa's house. There she told him her Daddy had died. He told her, without even a pause,  "Then I'll be your Daddy now." And he treated her just like that. Even after my parents divorced, he treated her like she was his daughter.

He was a mythic and legendary. He was a force of nature. What he wanted done was done, every time. When he spoke to someone, they listened. He was five feet eight inches tall and yet, he talked down men who are bigger than I. My mother visited him in court one day - he was the circuit clerk - and a particularly quarrelsome case had just come before him. A man, big and tall and mean, came storming over to my grandfather to dispute the judgment that had just been handed down. He had been ordered to pay five hundred dollars. He cursed my grandfather, the judge, the county and the state. He claimed it was an injustice and he sure as hell wasn't paying any money. He slammed his fist down onto the table where my grandfather was sitting. My Papa pulled out a massive pipe wrench from under the table and sat it down on the table between them. I think he asked the man if he had a problem and the man broke off his bluff. Papa would have whipped him, too.

He wasn't fluff. There was so much substance to him that you could scarcely take it in. He added value to this world every place he went. And what little he asked of this world was fitting tribute. He was a king and a lord in his own right; master of his domain.

The world weeps and the heavens rejoice.

Goodbye Papa, say hi to the many, many you outlasted.