Dear Grandad,
you were one of the first to welcome me into this world with love, and loved I've felt ever since. Eighteen years have come and gone too quickly and it's hard to believe our time together on Earth will be no more. There simply hasn't been nor will there be another Grandad quite like you. I envy the joy and strength you carried with you every day, I can't remember a time in my life where you weren't smiling or trying to make me smile.
I wasn't ready to say goodbye, Grandad. I didn't know you were going to leave us all so soon and my heart aches for just one more hug, for your gentle touch, your comforting voice, for your sweet unfading spirit. I can still see you lying on the hospital bed, your kinky gray hair laying the way it always has and your hands by your side, but it wasn't you Grandad-not really. Thursday night Jesus called you Home and welcomed you with the same love that you have showed me my whole life.
Grandad, we all miss you desperately, more and more it seems with each passing hour. We've all been sitting around your's and gran's kitchen table trying to process your absence, trying to make sense of your passing, but at the end of the day it still feels like you should be there with us. We're crying a lot and we're all a mess, especially your little Zachary, but a smile and a laugh do seem to make their way when we remember the joyful man you were. Grandad, we're taking care of eachother and I know that's what you want.
Friday, Emmalee and I were wrapped up in blankets on the wooden swing outside and we knew you would have come out to ask us why we were out when it was so cold, we just laughed knowing we wouldn't be able to give you a reasonable answer, but we knew you would have just smiled that smile of yours and went back in leaving us be. Grandad, we miss you, everything about you. Your hair, I remember as a little girl sitting on your lap or on the top of the couch combing your hair and putting barrettes in it. Your voice, I can still here you over the phone telling me you'll be right out to kill the wasp in my car when I pulled over on the street by your house last spring. Your hands, I loved when you would come up behind me and tickle my shoulders. Of course I always knew it was you, I would trap your hands between my shoulders and my neck and turn around and look up just to see that contagious smile of yours.
Grandad, I talked to Gran tonight. We were in the back bedroom, I was on the chair and she was laying on the bed, and she was telling me about what a great life of love she shared with you. Lying on that bed as she talked about the past, I saw a young girl who was in love with a wonderful man, a man that would one day become my Grandad. And then I saw me lying there, except I wasn't young, I was older and I had experienced more life-Grandad, it is my hope that one day I am that gran lying on a bed talking with her grandchild about a life that was well lived and well loved with the one that she loved. Your life was such a beautiful reminder of love and dedication to all you knew and I pray that through me and everyone else, that your rare love would carry on to everyone we meet.
You are the only "Grandad" and Eddie Lee Lutes there ever has been or will be. I am so incredibly blessed to have spent the last eighteen years as your grandaughter and I will hold close the memories we created. You're free now Grandad, from all the chains and limitations this world once brought, and though selfishly I wish you here with us, I trust God brought you to your Eternal home in His perfect timing. No more sickness, Grandad. No more pain.
All of us down here, we'll be fine. We'll cry when we need to and smile when we can, but we'll do it with hands held and knees knelt knowing that we'll see you again one day. We love you Grandaddy Long Legs. Thank you for loving us all so well.
Until we meet again,
Lahni Blair
