Goodbye Pampa George

On Tuesday, September 28^th mine and Charity's last grandparent passed away. Even though Pampa George was 91, missed my grandma terribly the last three years, and is in a much better place it's still hard to say goodbye to anyone you love. No matter what the circumstances. We had his funeral and said our final goodbyes on Monday, October 4^th. One thing that was really neat, and I have thought about it a lot, is a letter that Pampa wrote right after Mama passed away in 2007…..

Mamma's niece Connie was in about the 6^th grade and was very concerned that her Aunt Earlene was not married. In her mind Mama was old (late 20's) and Connie was afraid she would become an old maid. Connie decided to introduce her Aunt Earlene to one of her teachers – George Ewing. And as they say "the rest is history"…. After Mama passed away Pampa wrote Connie a letter thanking her for introducing them all those years ago. He also talked about how Earlene gave him two important gifts…A clean white body (his salvation) and Robyn (our mom). Connie happened to marry a Baptist Minister named Lawrence. Pampa planned out the details of his funeral several months ago, which is a great way to do it by the way. It took the stress off of my mom and us and Pampa's wishes were fulfilled from the songs to the minister to the location of the funeral. Pampa had decided that even though he was Assembly of God, Lawrence needed to be the minister at the funeral. I think we are all glad Pampa made that choice because Lawrence read that letter. Mom knew that Pampa had written the letter, but she didn't know what it said. I had no idea about the letter at all until the day of the funeral. It was a neat way to close out the service. Connie and Lawrence gave my mom the original letter, in Pampa's handwriting, that day. After the church service we traveled to Fort Scott, Kansas and Pampa was buried with Mama at the National Cemetery.

Every time I think about the letter it brings tears to my eyes. Not sad tears, but happy tears. I'm so thankful that I had the grandparents that I did. I was so blessed to have known them for as long as I did. I was well into adulthood before they passed away. I just pray that someday I can be the kind of grandparent to my grandkids and great-grandkids that my grandparents were to me and Cade.

George Robert Ewing