My grandfather, Paz, died on Good Friday, April 3, 2015. I wasn’t able to be with him when he passed, so I went instead to the place where he had lived when I was a child. A tornado destroyed that home and the outlying buildings in 2011. But as I say in the eulogy you’re about to read, which I delivered at his funeral, I prayed there on the same ground where I first learned to pray, kneeling in the dirt floor of the main barn hearing him groan and cry and call on the Lord. And while I was praying, I realized that he had become prayer. I can now see, eight years later, that that realization in the hours after his passing is one of the defining experiences of my life.
Paz would not have wanted me to eulogize him; he was too modest for that. He would have preferred me to talk about the Lord, about Nan, his friends. The truth is, I don’t have to eulogize him—his life speaks for itself. But I am his grandson and I cherish him too much not to say a few words about him.
First, more than anything, I want to acknowledge that I knew him to be a man of faith, hope, and love. To put it as simply as I know how to put it, he trusted God with his life. He loved God, and more than anything he wanted God’s will for himself, for his family, for his friends, for those who weren’t yet his friends. And because his life was rooted and grounded in that desire, he was in the best sense possible reliable and dependable. He was, in a word, “true.” The opposite of what Scripture calls a wandering star. He was a fixed point of light, and all of us navigated by him.
Paz belonged to the Lord, but he was his own man. He had a quirky sense of humor, and some peculiar opinions—some of which he held stubbornly, even fiercely. But I knew him to be peculiarly bright, curious like a child, and eager to learn.
This is one of the things I liked best about him: he always seemed ready for the truth, even when the truth was surprising or troubling. And because of that readiness, he had a special wisdom—an unusual wisdom. When my friend Justin asked Paz his secret to a long and happy marriage, Paz said with a wink, “Never get mad at each other at the same time”.
If you knew Paz, you know he could not talk with anyone for very long with talking about the goodness of the Lord. And you know he could not say more than a few words about the Lord without breaking into tears. God’s goodness had marked him so deeply that it burned in his bones and on his countenance and in his voice. When I saw him last week for what would be the last time, I saw that that goodness was carrying him through the end of his life.
We had gotten together to celebrate his and Nan’s 68th wedding anniversary. We were sharing our best memories and singing songs and hymns, speaking blessings over them. He was laughing and crying, singing and crying, praying and crying. But as always, tears of deep, sweet joy. At one point Nan leaned over and whispered to me: “I hate that he has to go, but I am so glad he is going this way.”
I have his King James Bible here. Actually, it is Nan’s—Dad gave it to her, Christmas 1980, but Paz claimed it and Nan was happy to give it to him. The other day I opened it up and found that he had two passages marked, one of them being what I remember as his favorite verse: “Whom having not seen you love, and in whom though now you see him not, yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Pet. 1:8).
Now, of course, he is seeing the Lord and knows the fullness of that joy that has been promised to all of us who believe. And because he is with the Lord, he continues to share in the Lord’s work. He continues to do what was always in his heart to do, but now he does it in the Lord and with the Lord, in his Spirit, joining with all the saints and angels and archangels praying for us.
When I was young, I would wait on the porch after school for Paz to come home after work, driving up in his red Chevy truck. He would greet me, step into the house to kiss Nan, maybe take a glass of water, then go to feed. Sometimes, I would go with him to load the hay and to call the cows. Invariably, after the troughs had been filled, he would go back to the barn to pray. And I would follow. Last night, although that barn is long gone, I went and stood there on that same ground again. I prayed like I remember him praying. And while I was praying, I realized deep, deep, deep down what it is that he is praying for us: he is praying for me and for all of us that we would come to know the Lord too. That we would come to know that the life the Lord gives is truly joy unspeakable and full of glory.
What a lovely example. I hope that those who follow after me might see something similar. Sweet.
very touching. brought tear to my eyes