Christian Living

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“Standing between the fourth and sixth floor” A portrait of my grandfather.

Yesterday my wife and our three year old son went up to visit my dad in the hospital who sadly has brain cancer. As we were heading to the elevators on the fourth floor in the evening we encountered my grandfather who is 86 years old. He was slowly pacing back and forth almost shuffling due to his old age across the waiting room floor like an ancient oak tree that sways back and forth against the crashing and thundering of the dark storms that sweep against its deep roots unexpectedly yet just like that oak tree my grandfather knew how to bend his branches against its angry winds.
Standing between the fourth and sixth floor my grandfather not only had to deal with his 61 year old son facing that bastard of a monster called cancer but his beloved wife of 62 years had to be hospitalized that night as well.
I paused in sheer amazement, stunned and speechless at my grandfather’s extraordinary courage. He looked like a circus ring leader with a whip in his hand hell bent on taming the menacing lion and the restless bear that stood towering before him. Here he was standing between the fourth and sixth floor standing guard over his dying son and his lovely wife protecting them with all the dignity, bravery and honor God could ever put inside a man.
Standing between the fourth and sixth floor as I stood in awe of my grandfather’s undying love and compassion for his family I thought of the many other times in his history of the hellish storms he has encountered such as World War 2, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cuban missile crisis, the Kennedy assassinations including Martin Luther King junior to the Watergate Scandal to 9-11, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars where two of his own grandchildren have fought heroically under the blood-stained banner of the Stars and Stripes along with thousands of others in the past.
Again I reflected upon my grandfather as I stood observing him in that rare terrible moment in that hospital on the fourth floor as the retired chief engineer that he was who sailed the dangerous, turbulent waters of the Great Lakes for many decades and how he had to kiss his wife and children countless times goodbye not knowing whether or not that he would come back because of the terrible risks of sailing and of the past victims the Great Lakes have sadly taken due to its deadly, menacing freezing waters but he had to provide for his family and sailing was the best way he knew how to do that.
Standing between the fourth floor and sixth floor here stood this great man my grandfather. A king in his own right. With a heart of a lion and nerves of steel facing yet facing another epic battle the storm of storms. He here he was standing guard like a teeth grinning bull dogged marine with his bayonet fastened to his rifle ever ready to fight to the last for his family. Watching over them vigilantly with the deepest kind of fiery love and bravery I have ever witnessed in my lifetime. The type of bravery and love which poets write electrifying poetry which moves the soul to greatness and out of the prisons of deep despair. Philosophers wax philosophical about and musician’s pen tearful and happy songs of the ancient kings who roamed our earth and stood death in the face and lived to tell about it and saved their kingdoms and families from peril such as my grandfather an ancient yet living king.
Who once again out of necessity sails upon the raging seas laughing at the storm of storms and the frothy waves that violently crash against the battered vessel of his character drenching him in emotional pain and yet at 86 years old I watched my grandfather standing between the fourth and sixth floors with his hands on the helm of his ship choking down his tears as he sailed into the vortex of the storm for his lovely wife of 62 years and my own dying father his beautiful son with them.
The elevator doors closed and I thanked God that ancient king’s blood courses through my veins and I said a silent prayer “Oh God help me to care for my wife and son as my grandfather takes care of his family”

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