Eulogy

My grandfather passed away this past winter break. I’m not sure why I’ve avoided writing about it until now. I think I haven’t had enough confidence that I could do him justice. I still don’t think I can, but I’m not as scared as I was before. There is something daunting about using finite, limited words to try to capture the essence of who someone is–or was.

I saw my grandpa for the last time on Christmas Day. I was away at my college winter retreat when he passed away. It was so difficult to be away from my family, trying to grieve on my own, frustrated I couldn’t be there to support my grandpa or comfort my dad.

It felt the same as when my grandmother died during high school. My relatives and mom were with her in Sacramento; I had stayed in southern California because I had basketball and school. We hadn’t expected her to deteriorate as quickly as she did, so it was too late for me to be there when she passed.

By Christmas time, he had begun to have trouble recognizing people, and he was too weak to eat or speak much. But Dad says that he always seemed to perk up when I visited. That night, he was much more cogent and alert than normal.

My last memory of my grandfather is the short interview I had with him. I thought I’d try to keep him entertained by asking him to tell me a story. His cardiologist–a huge history buff–told us that he talked to Grandpa about his part in the "Hump Airlift" in World War II.

Grandpa enlisted in an Army Air Force as a part of the Asian division when he was 19 or 20 years old, the same age I am now. His job was to help deliver supplies to the China, because the Chinese were cut off from their resources by the Japanese army.

He and his fellow soldiers would fly over the Himalaya mountains from India to China--in planes with no pressurized cabins, no oxygen masks, and no heating system. The planes would rise and fall, rise and fall as the wings of the plane flapped like a huge metal bird in the sky.
The soldiers could do nothing but sit or lie down and endure the turbulence as they waited to reach their destination. I asked Grandpa if he was scared of flying. He shrugged and said simply, "You get used to it." He told me he even used to like it.

Grandpa said that they lost "quite a few thousand planes–shot down, crashed, sometimes accidental" on this mission. In fact, to make sure they stayed on the correct path, the pilots would follow the trail of ruined aircrafts that had never reached their goal.

Sometimes, they would just drop things, he said, and other times, they were called upon to deliver the supplies by hand. He remembered what it was like in India–lots of jungles, lots of disease. He was scared to eat the food and the water was bad to drink, but they’d try to get some nourishment from fruit before getting some sleep and heading back.

Grandpa explained to me that he flew with other Chinese and Japanese soldiers who were eager to prove their loyalty as Americans. They often enlisted during high school, intending to fly a few missions and return to school. Of course, many of them never came back, including some of his friends and neighbors. The soldiers never knew if their mission would be peaceful, or if they would be shot down over the Himalayas.

Grandpa never talked to us about the important role he played in the Hump Airlift. We would never have found out about it if his cardiologist hadn’t spent time asking him about it first. That was just how grandpa was–modest and unpretentious.

I miss him now, more than ever. I miss him singing La Bamba to me, or Ole Susanna. I miss him sitting in front of our TV folding his laundry and watching Bonanza. He helped me catch my first fish and tried (unsuccessfully) to teach me to whistle. He showed me what it meant to work hard without complaining, and to deal with life’s hardships with grace and joy.

Grandpa didn’t have a college education, but he was proud of Daddy for putting himself through school, and he was proud of me for going to Biola. Even though he wasn’t well educated, he was very bright, and he had many hidden talents, like being able to speak Chinese, English, and Spanish fluently enough to coordinate the people working on the construction of our new church building.

And He was always the center of attention, not because he craved attention, but because his friendliness and sense of humor naturally drew people to him. I feel like I could go on and on about the kind of man he was and what he meant to me, but I’m already beginning to cry.

I know he’s not suffering now; I know he’s with his Savior. I had the privilege of hearing his salvation testimony and witnessing him be baptized at the ripe old age of 81–the oldest ever at our church. There’s so much comfort in that. His memory will always carry some pain for me, because I miss him so much. But I praise God for the way that God blessed him, even late in life. And I praise God for the blessing that he was in my life.