Crazy is the New Normal: Grandpa

November is quickly becoming my least favorite month ever.

For a few months, Grandpa had been deteriorating. His doctor never really could find a cause of the issues he was having, other than the fact that he functioned on about 20% heart function since we almost lost him when Carter was a newborn. In August, he had a scary episode where he suffered a mini-stroke, and the ball began rolling of doctor appointments. It was discovered in all of these appointments that he had some masses. When they were biopsied, they showed up as melanoma. So basically the melanoma that he had miraculously survived when my mom was very young had finally come back internally.

The doctors gave us basically no treatment options. Since his heart function was so low, there was literally nothing they could do to rid him of cancer that would be survivable.

We were devastated.

Since it was a bit of an odd cancer presentation, we didn't really have a timeline of how much time we had left with him. We took him home on hospice and less than a week later he was gone. Our family had rotated being at the house with them around the clock, and friends from all stages of his life came to visit. He influenced many, many people over the years, from his professional life, to his friends, to his leadership at church, to the masonic lodge he was a member of.

We also discovered something that us kids and grandkids knew nothing about. When he was in the corp at A&M, he was charged with rotating shifts guarding the bonfire. It was cold outside, and he and another fellow corp member brought the person on shift some coffee. While they were talking on the side of the road, an out of control car came into their path. One of the men pushed grandpa and the other man out of the path of the car, and he was killed. This was something that profoundly affected Grandpa, so much so that he never spoke of it. We only learned of this when we saw newspaper articles about it and Grandma filled us in on the details.

This man was like a cat with nine lives. He survived several close calls with death throughout his life. Obviously God was not done with him. Not until November 26th, 2014. We had a wonderful service for him, where the family told stories and we had bagpipes playing. People from every decade of his life came to celebrate his homecoming. Everyone except for his own family. For reasons we still do not know, his brother, sister, or any other members of his own family didn't care enough to come. This ended 60+ years of tension and hard feelings from them directed towards us, and although it devastated my Grandma that they could be so heartless, I said good riddance.

He meant so very much to me. I have countless memories involving him and most of those he is doing something that made us laugh. We were beyond blessed with such a Godly leader for our family, and his legacy is long and will continue for years to come.

These are some pictures that we showed at his service. I want my kids to remember him forever. They still miss him and ask for him. I want them to know how much he loved them. Like I said at his service, I just thought he spoiled me until I had kids of my own!

Roy Gordon Guthrie. In no particular order.

My college graduation

Family vacation to New Braunfels. Those awful red Crocs.

With Nathan at Micah and Aly's wedding

Dancing with Devin

Meeting Carter for the first time

His last Father's Day

He was so proud to watch his Carter-Roy play!

This sums him up!

At Pat O'Brien's in New Orleans. The trip where he disappeared into the Tulane baseball team.

When I went to visit him after he had a heart attack and was all high on pain meds, this is the face he made when I said to say cheese. He wanted people to think he was in bad shape.

Building this shop was one of his finest accomplishments

With Devin and Nathan

The true grave digger

During football season, he could always be spotted on the sidelines with his camera

The man loved to dance!

My senior drill team banquet

This is a perfect picture of their relationship

His corp picture

We called him the Grand Poobah of the lodge

He was awarded the Golden Trowel award from his lodge, which we jokingly called the Golden Shovel award.

Snazzy!

When I was little I LOVED going with them to their friends' ranch in Athens.

He was an all-star athlete at Garland High

Their wedding day. They were teenagers!

He totally started this food fight

He had known pastor Dickson Rial for years. When Grandpa was coming to in the ICU after almost dying the day before 5 years ago, he looked out the window and saw Dickson standing in the hall. He promptly flipped him the bird, and Dickson keeled over laughing. Who can get away with that??

I love this picture, not just because he is being a goon, but because it also includes my daddy and my MaMaw in the background, two people who I also miss terribly.