December 2nd is my birthday. I LOVE my birthday. I take the day off from parenting and most other responsibilities, and get to do one of my favorite things – spend time with the people I love most. It fills me up. Most years, I schedule a get together at a bar or restaurant so I can gather with my people – and make my birthDAY a birthday WEEK!
This year, like everyone else, my birthday was a little different.
More than quarantine, my birthday was a whole new kind of different.
My grandfather, Lt. Col. James C. McMurtry Jr., died in the early morning on December 2, 2020, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania at age 98. I am sad, but I have joy. I think that’s the definition of “peace that passes all understanding”. What a life he lived, what more could we have asked for??
Some fast facts: He was born in 1922, married my grandmother, Charlotte Maxine (whom he called ‘Doll’ and ‘Max’) on July 22, 1944. They had 4 children, 11 grandchildren, countless great-grandchildren, including 2 of my own. He left the US Army as a Lt. Col., and was deployed overseas during World War II, including some heroic driving during the Battle of the Bulge. Let me tell you – he was born to be a grandparent (and great grandparent!). We affectionately shorted “grandma and grandpa” to the incredibly creative “GM and GP”. He adored us, he kept inside jokes with us, he sent us love in every form he could think of regardless of if we lived one mile away or 3,000.
He was present.
GM and GP were “at” my wedding – my cousin Amy filmed it, and I had some of GM’s jewelry wired into my bouquet. My husband and I share their anniversary. He walked my cousin down the aisle at her own wedding, as her father passed when she was young.
GP gave nicknames to all his great-grandchildren in utero, then kept up those nicknames – my favorite was Kinsley’s, “Popcorn” – my favorite treat, and a special treat we would make with him (and called 4-5-0 aptly named due to the length of time to cook with his popper). He always had a straw hat with him, and Polo cologne – which he would spritz on me before I left, much to the exasperation of GM and my travelling companions.
But how do I make people understand the depth of his love and our relationship?
My sister wrote beautifully about our grandmothers passing just over 9 years ago. It may be the best way for you to understand – this wasn’t a normal grandparent-grandchild relationship, this was friendship, adoration, respect, the list is endless.
This is a man who saved me from KinderCare, just because he could – I’d see his hat in the window and I knew I was headed towards freedom (and McDonalds or ice cream, depending on the time of day). A man who asked just to feel how wobbly my loose tooth was when I was too scared to pull it, then slyly opened his hand to reveal my tooth. A man who sang to us – Daddy Sang Bass, Amazing Grace, The Old Rugged Cross, something he made up. He spelled things out for us, but backwards, like a puzzle – up until days before he passed, keeping his mind sharp. Who convinced me to do a play by offering ice cream, and when I made eye contact with him from stage, held up two fingers as a reminder that my presence on stage earned me “two scoops”.
GP had a dish of M&Ms always full in the dining room, took us to Wegman’s because we “out of towners” loved it and don’t have it where we live, and had a sing-songy way of saying “thank you thank you thank you” and used it my whole life.
He prayed over our meals like a preacher in a church, we always joked he had notecards in his pocket they were so eloquent. The man never missed a chance to buy us Dunkin Donuts (don’t forget the senior discount!), to take us mini-golfing and was endlessly patient trying to teach us how to putt, to “zoom zoom” by picking up speed down a backroad, or to let us ride on the Cub Cadet (and let me take over lawn mowing duties when I was older!) This is a man who took me to see Pearl Harbor, because my 13 year old self thought “war movie!” not “love story”. (Although I do love that movie, I was thinking it was going to be more like Saving Private Ryan, sue me).
He lived out the example of how to be frugal – but showed that generosity was not a time for frugality, unless it included purchasing a child or grandchild an appliance with his Sears discount. He never missed an opportunity to give to one of us what we needed. Early in our marriage, I mentioned in passing in a phone conversation that the heat on my beloved WRX was failing fast but I’d eventually get it fixed when we budgeted for it, and a few days later a check was in the mail to pay for the repairs with a note along the lines of “why suffer when I can help”.
From my countless run-on sentences above, I hope you see how I adore him.
I have, as long as I can remember, dreaded my grandparents death. I was blessed with 4 incredible grandparents who made the conscious choice to be active grandparents. They were so present, so engaged, and just THERE in our lives, that imagining a world without them was…unimaginable. GP’s was always the one I feared the most, and the Lord provided by making it the last. Before I left Pennsylvania at the end of every trip for as far back as I can remember, my little sentimental heart had to write a note just in case. I’d leave it on one of their pillows. It said the same thing every time – how much I loved GM and GP and thanks. Just in case.
I’ve talked with my mom and aunt for years, the hope was always that one day, the door to my grandpa’s house would be locked in the morning when she came over, signaling that he had simply gone to sleep one night in his bed and woke up in Heaven. That isn’t what happened – he broke his hip on the Friday after Thanksgiving, had surgery Saturday, and by Monday was in hospice care. Monday happened to be his middle daughters, my aunt Beth, birthday.
It breaks my heart that he didn’t get to say goodbye to his house, the place he’s lived for decades, the place that – until that Friday, he lived alone, mostly independently. As Abby and I have talked about in the days following it, sometimes you don’t know when it’s your “last” of something – like his last night in his house.
But – what a gift we got.
For all its downfalls, this is where technology soars. In the midst of a global pandemic. From hundreds and thousands of miles away. His health in a fast decline. On his last two days of life on Earth, his room was filled with the faces and voices of all of his children, his grandchildren, and his great-grandchildren. We all got to Facetime to say goodbye, to speak words of thanks, of love, of praise to him. To pray the Psalms and 2 Timothy over him. Sharing with him how excited we were for him to reunite with his Doll again. To fill his hospice room with Daddy Sang Bass and the Old Rugged Cross and Amazing Grace and On the Road Again, of memories and laughter and love.
But my aunt’s birthday. But my birthday.
That’s what thought creeped in the back of my mind. And then I said it to my dad, partially in sadness, partially in shame of the selfishness. What he said changed everything.
“What a gift that would be, Sam. You have always had such a special relationship, what a provision of the Lord that would be, an acknowledgement of the love between you and how close you are, for you to share the day he meets Jesus with your birthday.”
And my prayers changed. And then, were answered.
He died on December 2, my birthday. I got the call from my mom shortly after I woke up. Bless her, she started with “Happy birthday, baby” and then she said, “Sham…” and in my heart I just knew, so my response was, “he’s gone?” And I cried tears of sorrow and great joy. His last breath here was his first there, his eyes closed on this Earth and opened to the beauty and glory of Heaven. He met Jesus, saw Maxine, and got to say, “Doll, you’ll never guess the legacy we left behind…” and tell her of the lives we live, because they showed us how. The children that adore them, that miss them. The new lives that have begun since hers ended. He gets to tell her all about them.
Yes, this happened on my birthday. It made for perhaps the strangest birthday of my life, living in the mix of life and death. I didn’t tell a lot of people – obviously my family knew, but few friends and loved ones outside of that bubble were told, even until now. I was very acutely aware that the day that was spent by most people I knew acknowledging and celebrating the start of my life, was spent quietly by others mourning the end of his. My favorite man. God’s acknowledgement of our relationship. The sweetest goodbye kiss. A farewell I won’t forget.
At the end, I got to say goodbye in the same way I had in every note I left “just in case”.
The night before, I texted my aunt and asked if he was still awake, could I FaceTime one more time. There was a nagging in my soul that needed “just one more”. She almost immediately called, and in my car, in the middle of a Safeway parking lot, I got to say goodbye to my precious GP.
I got to tell him that it has been an absolute honor to be his grandchild and witness his example. How excited I was for him to meet Jesus and reunite with GM. Thank him for the 4-5-0, the two scoops of ice cream, rescuing me from KinderCare.
When I see a hat like his, I will smile. When I smell Polo, I’ll laugh. A Cub Cadet riding mower? Maybe we’ll even own one one day. At the end of the day, I think the best way to honor him, and my other grandparents gone before him, is to live the example of the life he lived. I’ll make 4-5-0 and give generously and love endlessly, and I’ll wait patiently to hug him again.