A Tribute to My Granddad

My granddad was a great navigator, able to read the clouds and move around and through storms, able to locate and set down a small Helio plane on tiny mountain airstrips. And now he’s home, the direction his heart has always pointed.

Granddad grew up an athlete. He wanted to run in college, but when that dream failed due to struggles with illness, he attended Bible school instead. He dreamed of becoming a pilot, but couldn’t enter the Air Force because of his susceptibility to bronchitis. He committed his life to full-time Christian service, believing that he belonged to the Lord, and that if the Lord wanted his dreams to happen, they would.

Granddad met my nana at a Wycliffe school in Norman, Oklahoma. He didn’t pursue her before first asking her age. Gentleman that he was, he wanted to make sure he was being appropriate in his pursuit. He spent further time with Nana at Jungle Camp in Mexico and there proposed to her. Nana’s mom, Sarah (my namesake) gave him her diamond for Nana’s engagement ring. God did provide for Granddad to become a pilot. Wycliffe needed jungle pilots and Granddad became the only pilot Wycliffe ever paid to train.

Granddad was circling for a while. I noticed in Thanksgiving 2022 when I called him on the phone. He kept repeating himself, but he was repeating over and over that we should thank the Lord. I could not complain. I knew he was slipping when he called my cell phone and talked to me like my mom, his daughter. He did not quite get details of my life right when he realized who he was talking to, but he remembered my husband's career, and that made me smile.

I saw him last December 28, 2023. He was sitting in a wheelchair in his nursing home room. He did not quite remember who I was, but I think he eventually got it. We spent the hour I was there looking at family photos. He got several names wrong, but still seemed to remember who went with whom. He noted that he liked pictures because it reminded him to pray. It was music to my ears when he read scriptures aloud from some of the cards on his dresser.

When I went to go, Granddad tried several times to lift himself out of his wheelchair. “I want to walk you out,” he said. I reassured him that it was not necessary, that he could rest.
As I turned to close his doors, I heard him say, “I guess I won't be seeing you again.” Tears sprung to my eyes. I was not sure if he meant on my current visit, or eternity, and to comfort him, I replied about the present moment.

“No, I have to fly home soon,” I said.

I knew that most likely that I would not see him again, though, at least this side of heaven and I didn't. He took a short flight home to glory on Saturday, May 31^st, after a rapid decline in health experienced the day before.

Granddad is now a citizen a citizen of heaven. He has landed and is finally home. Though I will see him here on earth no more, I have confidence that I will see after I, too, take my final flight. Granddad trusted Jesus as his Savior and in part because of the legacy he left his family, I do, too.