{"id":1559,"date":"2014-10-20T15:06:42","date_gmt":"2014-10-20T19:06:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/themaddlife.com\/?p=1559"},"modified":"2018-12-29T13:22:22","modified_gmt":"2018-12-29T18:22:22","slug":"a-great-grandpa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themaddlife.com\/?p=1559","title":{"rendered":"A Great Grandpa"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was fortunate to have grown up with my Papa Mac being a big part of my life. He passed away one week ago at the ripe old age of 90.\u00a0 He lived a full life. \u00a0I\u2019m so glad that he got to meet all three his great granddaughters on several occasions and glad we were able to capture these precious moments.<\/em><\/p>\n

Papa Mac with Emerson when she was 8 weeks old.\"\"<\/em><\/p>\n

Papa Mac with Avery when she was 7 months old.\"\"<\/em><\/p>\n

Papa Mac with Harper when she was 9 weeks old.\"\"<\/em><\/p>\n

I also spoke at\u00a0 his funeral yesterday….here is a copy of my eulogy.<\/em><\/p>\n

Here I am questioning myself\u2026.why am I not more upset about your death\u2026.I\u2019m sad your gone but I don\u2019t have this sick feeling in my stomach about it\u2026.and I know the reason\u2026.It\u2019s because you lived\u2026you lived a full life that was rich in quantity (you were 90 years old) and quality!\u00a0 You were a simple man; your greatest pleasure in life was your family.\u00a0 In recent years as you became less mobile, your face would just beam with joy with each family visit.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Your family was your pride and joy\u2026..a loving wife of 65 years, 2 sons, 2 daughter in laws, 3 granddaughters, 1 grandson, plus a bonus grandson by marriage, and 3 great granddaughters who loved talking about Papa Mac. \u00a0I\u2019m so fortunate that you were able to meet them and they were able to meet and know you.\u00a0 You were proud of who you were and your roots.\u00a0 You were proud of your parents and your siblings and when you told stories of your youth your face would light up; you remembered the stories like they were just yesterday.<\/em><\/p>\n

As my Grandpa, there were two recurring stories that you loved to tell me\u2026.and each time you told it, it was like you had never told it before\u2026.I\u2019m not sure if you didn\u2019t realize you had told it before or you truly just loved the story that much\u2026I tend to think it was the latter\u2026.anyway, the first was with regards to my birth\u2026..35 years ago!…you\u00a0 would always tell the story of hopping on a plane right away upon my birth to meet your first grandchild\u2026and then how you were able to identify me right away in the nursery with my full head of black hair.\u00a0 Then there was the story of how I would run down the hall at the Rotunda (the condominium I lived in until I was five) every time you came to visit.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

When I was a kid, you would come visit me and Lauren in Virginia a few times a year.\u00a0 You would drive down in your Caddy and stay for a few days\u2026.although by the size of Grandma\u2019s valise, one would have thought you would have been staying all month.\u00a0 And a special gift for me and Lauren, often clothing, would accompany you.<\/em><\/p>\n

For many of my childhood and my teenage years we would spend Thanksgivings together\u2026you, Grandma, Mom, Dad, Russell, Mary, me and Lauren, and a few years Michael and Caroline before I went off to College. \u00a0On years that were seasonably warm, we would hang out outside in your \u201cyard\u201d as we waited meal time.\u00a0\u00a0 In between visits we would speak on the phone\u2026for many years it was weekly and while in recent years the frequency has been far less, one thing still remained the same\u2026each and every call would end with the both of us saying, I love you.\u00a0 I will always know how much he loved me\u2026and not only me, but also how much he loved his entire family.<\/em><\/p>\n

Papa Mac was a real Jew\u2026he loved to eat (incase you couldn\u2019t tell from his belly)\u2026.he loved Italian Food and Grandma\u2019s famous cooking\u2026.although he didn\u2019t like cheese, something I\u2019ll never understand\u2026.I have vivid memories of some of the edible goodies he and Grandma would bring with them on their Virginia visits\u2026such as the famous Rainbow cookies and a good \u2018ol Entammen\u2019s Black-out cake.<\/em><\/p>\n

Softball was my passion growing up and Papa Mac was one of my biggest fans.\u00a0 He even played on his own softball team in Concordia!<\/em><\/p>\n

Papa Mac\u2019s long term memory was insane\u2026.he even had a great memory and liked to tell stories of his earlier years and of his parents and 5 siblings.\u00a0 He was a sports enthusiast and would always love to talk about sports\u2026.especially those Terrapins.\u00a0 He was funny too\u2026although I think sometimes it was truly unintentional\u2026. In the hosptial 10 years ago, he would flirt with some of the younger nurses.\u00a0 One of the ladies\u2019 names was Roma, and I remember Papa Mac telling her she was his favorite tomato!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

It was over 10 years ago when my Papa first met Justin, my husband.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know why but a lot of people get the name Justin confused with Jason\u2026.Papa Mac was no exception.\u00a0 Sometimes he would call Justin Justin, other times Jason\u2026.sometimes he was quite aware that he would confuse the two\u2026other times not as much\u2026he liked Justin\u2026.he would often ask how his job at the bank was\u2026often times I would humor him\u2026but Papa I\u2019m here to tell you one final time, Justin doesn\u2019t work at a bank:).\u00a0 But the important thing was that he liked Justin and considered him his second grandson.<\/em><\/p>\n

While I know that this short eulogy in no way captures everything about you that was so great, I do know that you were special to each and every one of us who are here today in different ways.\u00a0 You were also quite special to many other family and friends who either couldn\u2019t be with us today or departed before you.\u00a0 And while you were so special to all us in different ways, I can say with certainty one common thing we all share is that we are going to miss you.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0RIP Papa Mac<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was fortunate to have grown up with my Papa Mac being a big part of my life. He passed away one week ago at the ripe old age of 90.\u00a0 He lived a full life. \u00a0I\u2019m so glad that … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[58],"class_list":["post-1559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-papa-mac"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/themaddlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/themaddlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/themaddlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themaddlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themaddlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/themaddlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/themaddlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themaddlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themaddlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}