“What do you want me to do, Jesus?”

Fifteen years ago my Granddaddy was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. For the past five years he has been in a nursing home, a timespan in which he has not had the mental capacity to ask questions or initiate conversation, though always polite to everyone who engaged him.

Over the Christmas holidays my family was able to stop to visit him on our way back to Oklahoma from Texas. He lit up seeing the kids, he just didn’t know they were his great grandkids. 1 – 2 – 3, he counted them (still good with numbers), compared everyone’s height and was fascinated by my daughter’s hair.

He agreed to a picture, but wasn’t sure why we wanted one with him. I’m so glad we got it, it’s our last.

When my kids’ were younger we lived just thirty minutes away so they knew their great-grandparents like another set of grandparents and were the frequent recipients of their love. Granddaddy loved to play games with them, take them to his lumberyard to see the redi-mix trucks and the farm to see his cows, just as he did with me.

The farm is actually where this city-girl learned to drive– wherever the armadillo was is the direction Granddaddy told me to turn the steering wheel! And on the farm with Granddaddy, I fished, chased mice in the barn and rode my horse too.

Granddaddy also loved pranks. He always had something up his sleeve. One time he came to Houston and went to the Livestock Show & Rodeo and came back to our house with a ripped shirt, his arm in a sling and a picture of him riding a bull. Turns out the bull was mechanical and he didn’t fall off. But that didn’t keep him from submitting the “fake news” to his town newspaper and getting it published!

Another time years before when I was at the farm, he rubbed monkey blood all over my arm and then wrapped it up in bandages before we went back to the house to play a joke on my grandmother. I’m not sure she found cleaning the mess off my arm very funny, but I bet it didn’t surprise her. She knew Granddaddy loved to play, and children always brought him to life.

As great as these memories are, the legacy he left for all of us is much greater still. Granddaddy loved Jesus, and he took seriously the importance of passing on the faith from one generation to the next. 

When we gathered Granddaddy would read from the Bible before we prayed, all of us standing in the kitchen holding hands. Another way he exemplified Christ was faithfully loving his bride for 69 years until my grandmother’s death four years ago (you can read about her here.) They were a picture of sacrificial love and commitment, and together built and treasured family.

We learned the importance of church through their committment to it, and the community they enjoyed in it. We saw modeled through them generosity, hospitality and genuine concern for others. As my husband said, “Granddaddy seemed to always be mindful of others, making sure people were comfortable and cared for.

In his final years, we’ve tried to do the same for him. Though he has been unable to go to church or anywhere because his memory failed him, at the moment of his death he was never more in his right mind. For the hope of Jesus was more real to him than anything we see.

When Granddaddy asked his final question, “What do you want me to do, Jesus?” I believe he was being ushered into heaven by angels, surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, and with unveiled face Granddaddy beholding for the first time the full radiance of Jesus Christ was transformed in an instant to glory. 

And in that moment was Jesus’ answer – “You don’t need to do a thing Dick Tucker. You are weary. Come. I will give you REST.

Grandaddy is in heaven today restored to health, reunited with his bride in the holy presence of THE BRIDEGROOM because long ago he trusted in the finished work of Christ on his behalf and the promise of an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading.

What a gift we have all had in my grandfather. And the greater gift he pointed us to even in death.