This past week, my Grandpa gained his angel wings. I know he flies free of his body and is strong again. The week was hard but we were also able to breathe a sigh of relief--Grandpa is no longer a prisoner of his own body.
My family spent the week looking back at family pictures, telling stories about Grandpa, and looking at some of his Navy memorabilia that we have never seen before. We found pictures that reminded of us of his vibrant smile before his stroke and lots of pictures that showed just how hard of a worker he was. Maybe even some awesome RAGBRAI ones in which he typically sported cut off jeans and a button up shirt. How that was comfortable--we will never know!
We gathered on Saturday at the country church just down the road from my parents house to celebrate his life and say our goodbyes. While we know that Grandpa is in a much better place, it was certainly a tough couple of days. His funeral was filled with his favorite flowers, music, and stories of how he loved animals and his gardens. My dad got up and spoke which was a surprise to all of us. No one can prepare you to see your dad hurting like that. He did a great job though at reading Paul Harvey's So God Made a Farmer and creating an awesome picture of Grandpa in heaven. It was a perfect description of my grandpa and one that I know my dad wanted to read in honor of his dad.
We know that Grandpa is working in the gardens of heaven and raising some of the most beautiful petunias anyone has seen! We smile knowing his right arm is strong again and that he is spending quality time with my sister and cousin!
As we left the church and headed to the cemetery, we drove Grandpa through his yard one last time. One last time by his bird feeders, the grain bins, and cattle set up. As we were doing this, there was a hawk that circled over head and we all smiled knowing that Grandpa was watching over us. It was breathtaking! One of his favorite things in the past few years was to watch the birds!
While we will miss seeing him on his Dixon mower by his gardens, reading the paper with him, and his tootsie roll candy dish, we are relieved that he is in a much better place and with our Savior, Jesus Christ!
I'll leave you with the words that describe how I will always remember my Grandpa Rottink!
And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, "I need a caretaker." So God made a farmer.
God said, "I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper and then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board." So God made a farmer.
"I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait lunch until his wife's done feeding visiting ladies and tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon -- and mean it." So God made a farmer.
God said, "I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt. And watch it die. Then dry his eyes and say, 'Maybe next year.' I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from a persimmon sprout, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, who can make harness out of haywire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. And who, planting time and harvest season, will finish his forty-hour week by Tuesday noon, then, pain'n from 'tractor back,' put in another seventy-two hours." So God made a farmer.
God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds and yet stop in mid-field and race to help when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor's place. So God made a farmer.
God said, "I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bails, yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink-combed pullets, who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the broken leg of a meadow lark. It had to be somebody who'd plow deep and straight and not cut corners. Somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk and replenish the self-feeder and finish a hard week's work with a five-mile drive to church.
"Somebody who'd bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh and then sigh, and then reply, with smiling eyes, when his son says he wants to spend his life 'doing what dad does.'" So God made a farmer.
~Paul Harvey, 1978
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