The Worst Thing

Ruth and my first look at death as a married couple took place on April 30, 1979.  I got a call at work in Addison from Ruth’s Aunt Casey.  She told me Ruth’s dad, Lou, had a heart attack.  Lou was sixty-five.  Ruth and I were thirty-two. David was four, Elizabeth two, and Michael nine months.

I called my mom to ask her to come from Royal Oak to pick up David and Elizabeth to care for them for the next several days.  Then I called the superintendent’s wife, Carolyn, to ask her to watch the two until my mom arrived.  We’d take Michael with us to Plainwell.  I had the plan in place before I drove home to speak with Ruth.  It was the most devastating news I ever shared with her.  Lou thought Ruth hung the moon and she felt the same about her dad.

Among Ruth’s attributes, was the fact she gave Lou two grandsons.  He had three daughters of his own, and two granddaughters from Ruth’s older sister, Shirley, but David was the first boy.  Lou liked boys, and he loved David. Perhaps most important, David loved Lou.

The week we spent in Plainwell was very somber.  After the first night together, we took Michael to spend a couple of days with his Grandpa Jack and Grandma Em Walker.

Everyone was shocked by Lou’s passing.  He’d never been sick and was a man’s man.  He’s the only man who I feared.  I knew if I ever wronged his daughter, there’d be hell to pay.

Near the end of the week, my mom and dad brought David and Elizabeth to Kalamazoo.  We all met up at Jack and Emma’s.  We shed some tears and shared stories, doing our best to support one another.  The kids were too young to understand what was happening with the adults.

The task of speaking with David about his grandfather fell to me.  We went off by ourselves and sat face to face.  I don’t recall the words I used, but in the end, I said something like, “God took grandpa to heaven to live with him.  He won’t be with us anymore.”  Then David said, “I’m gonna punch God right in the nose.”  That’s probably the worst thing a four-year-old could do.

With Ruth’s passing, this seventy-five-year-old feels the same.