On Christmas Grandpa told us that this would be his last one with us, and that we\u2019d better\u00a0enjoy it because he won\u2019t be around next year. He said this over 20 years ago, and at every\u00a0subsequent holiday or birthday we would spend with him. As a five year old when I first heard\u00a0him say it, it probably freaked me out. Where was heaven? Why did my grandpa say he was\u00a0going to live there? Oh the questions I probably asked my Mom and Dad. And while he\u00a0continued to say his goodbyes on every high holy days or celebration, he continued to provide\u00a0years of memories, wisdom, and gifts. Not physical gifts, all of us grandchildren got the same few\u00a0dollars every birthday, but gifts that molded us and challenged us.<\/p>\n
The first gift Grandpa gave us was security<\/strong>. I remember holding on tightly to him one of\u00a0the first times we rode \u201cthunder mountain\u201d at Disney world. Or when I broke my arm on his\u00a0back porch, him picking me up and loading me in the car to take me to the hospital. We always\u00a0felt safe around him, because we knew he had our best interests in mind.<\/p>\n His second gift was the gift of value<\/strong>. When we would walk into the house to come visit,he would lean forward in his chair, smile big and call us by name. You could tell that he was\u00a0genuinely\u00a0was excited to see us.<\/p>\n His third gift was his Grandpa-isms<\/strong>. \u00a0\u00a0When he would get excited his woo-hoo *** Finger to mouth***\u00a0\u201cHoly Makeral\u201d \u201cThis is awful\u201d Noogies. \u00a0\u00a0Many of these his grandkids have picked up and will continue to use.<\/p>\n His forth gift was authenticity<\/strong>. Grandpa was the same with everyone he interacted with. Sometimes too blunt, sometimes overusing his grandpa-isms, always honest, always real. When\u00a0young people interact with authentic adults it gives them the freedom to do the same. Grandpa\u00a0did that to people he interacted with.<\/p>\n His fifth gift was our Parents<\/strong>. If you have interacted with any of his children, our mom\u2019s\u00a0and dad\u2019s, uncles and aunt\u2019s. They are all different, and definitely their own persons, but they all\u00a0have served as a model for us grandkids. And we know that model was greatly influenced by\u00a0our grandfather.<\/p>\n The last and most important gift he gave us was Jesus<\/strong>. When my grandfather gave his\u00a0life to Jesus as a young man, he changed our family tree. His children and grandchildren walk\u00a0with the Lord, and the countless lives that have been touched by his and his children and\u00a0grandchildren are a domino result of his decision to walk with Jesus. It is this gift that was the\u00a0foundation to the other gifts that he gave us. Well, I don\u2019t know if Jesus would want to take\u00a0credit for the grandpa-isms. Either way, he blazed the trail that his children and grandchildren\u00a0would walk, and by the grace of God his great grand-children and their children will do the same.\u00a0Grandpa left a legacy, one that I am proud to be part of.<\/p>\n Two Christmas\u2019s ago was the last Christmas I got to spend with my grandfather. And he\u00a0again said that this would be his last Christmas and that we\u2019d better enjoy it. I didn\u2019t freak out\u00a0like I did when I was 5. I responded with something like, \u201cMaybe Grandpa… but the amount of\u00a0Christmas\u2019s we miss together, will pale in comparison to the amount of Christmas\u2019s we spend\u00a0together, when we both make it home.\u201d I can\u2019t wait to spend another holiday with my Grandpa,\u00a0and he won\u2019t make a threat that it is his last again.<\/p>\n by Adam (AJ) Swanson<\/a> on behalf of himself, Pam, Christian, Steve, Joel, Melinda, Lindsey<\/a>, David<\/a>, Owen, Rachel, Tom<\/a>, and Ashley<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The last and most important gift he gave us was Jesus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marklydecker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marklydecker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marklydecker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marklydecker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marklydecker.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=606"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.marklydecker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":622,"href":"https:\/\/www.marklydecker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606\/revisions\/622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marklydecker.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marklydecker.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marklydecker.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}