Moving Onward

Tuesday night my Pops finally got to rest. For the last couple of months he's declined rapidly, which as anyone who has lost an elder family member knows is by no means a delightful process.

My grandfather was a timber faller of the old guard. He descended from some of the hardest working stock of people I have ever heard tales about. His father, my great grandpa, worked himself quite literally to death. His heart exploded before I was even born, the man used to split railroad ties by hand as well as falling timber.

My Pops worked similarly hard.

The memories I have of Pops are pleasant ones, okay and some not so pleasant ones, family is never a perfectly pleasant line to be navigated. But I do smile when I think about how he called me Pebbles as a little girl (like off of the Flintstones), taught me to read as a toddler by helping me sound out the words on my grandma's wallpaper (all kitchen terms, it's no wonder I love food crafting), and instilled an absolute love and terror into my heart when it came to all things vehicle.

In fact, some of my earliest memories are of me standing on the bench seat of his Chevy square body on some logging road somewhere in the Cascade mountains, staring at bull elk over in a random clear cut unit. Pops, Dad, and my Uncle used to take me out in the woods quite frequently, mountains, trees, Copenhagen, and CCR were all a part of the scene.

My grandpa taught me how to stack wood, took me fishing, helped instill the importance of work ethic, introduced me to the Hobbit, and gave me a love for big block Chevy engines. Oh yes, and taught me how to apply bear grease to baseball gloves and the importance of taking care of our things.

There were other things he taught me inadvertently as well. Specifically that conflict resolution cannot be neglected.

My grandpa lived a very long, full life, and as I perused Facebook this morning, it's apparent that he made an impact in this world. He and I had a somewhat complicated relationship, but every time I square up a rick of wood or sweep out a carport, or hear the throaty rumble of a cam shaft, or smell the sawdust flying out of the back of an 066, I will think of my Pops. He was one of a kind and I feel blessed that I got to descend from a person like that.

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