learning to remember

today was a special day filled with celebration, sadness, and storytelling of my grandfather. i suppose life adjusts a bit in regards to him as we learn to remember him in our own ways instead of sharing life with him directly as we used to.

i do not think i mentioned his name on our blog before, but my grandfather's name is clayton. i think i will share here my thoughts of my grandfather that i shared at the service today.

like i said, many people knew my grandfather as clayton, but there are five of us who call him gaggy. an odd name, you may think, but he loved it. the name originated with our family trying to get me to call him an actual grandfather name, like granddaddy, but i supposedly said gaggy so many times instead that everyone accepted that as his name. years later, i asked him if wanted us to start calling him a normal grandfather name since we were older. he was shocked i would even ask such a thing because to him it was a true gift to be the one and only gaggy, and he would not change that for the world.

thank you for your prayers and thoughts for us and my family. please continue to pray for our family, especially my grandmother, during this time.