Sabbath Devotional :: Remembering My Grandpas

I have two grandpas, which is not unusual. My Grandpa Christensen, who was born in 1918, lived about twenty minutes away from my childhood home. We saw him often. He and Grandma were over for every birthday and special event. They would also drop by our house, or we would go to their place several times a month. We never had especially long visits because Grandpa would get “nervous,” but the visits were frequent.

Grandpa called us every morning before school. We’d pass the phone around to quickly say hello to him in between grabbing a piece of toast and teasing our bangs into a frenzy.

Grandpa loved numbers. He enjoyed doing arithmetic in his head, just for fun, and had a career as a tax man. He also loved cars. This combination of numbers and cars meant that he was always looking for patterns and milestones on his odometer, which is something that has passed down to me and my cousins.

Grandpa drove a red Buick with the vanity plate AGC 1. “AGC are my initials and the number one is what your grandma thinks I am,” he would say while Grandma affectionately rolled her eyes. When he passed away, the funeral director, who knew Grandpa, honored him by purchasing a new hearse — a Buick — for Grandpa’s final ride.

When he was young, Grandpa considered himself a black sheep in his own family. After having four kids, he made some changes in his life. From the time of that conversion, he was unfaltering in his faithfulness. He loved numbers, which I’ve already mentioned, so he made sure the numbers reflected his personal commitment. He maintained 100% home teaching for his life. I know that we’re not supposed to praise such things, but I’m praising it. Grandpa would go home teaching on the first of every month, and then he would contact his families as needed after that. He remembered the birthdays of each person in the family and always made them feel seen. At the time that he died, he was assigned to visit seventeen families in his ward. They were mostly families who were not active in the church and not necessarily welcoming to visitors from the church. But they welcomed Grandpa. You see, after Grandpa’s “black sheep” years, he had a special compassion for people who struggled in any way. He would look out for the prodigal, the wanderer, and the troubled soul. He was a gentle rescuer, willing to spend years building relationships to make sure people knew their worth.

Grandpa Christensen died when I was a sophomore in college. I knew him well. I love him and I miss him.

My other grandpa, Boyce Rawlins, was born in 1890 and died in 1949, when my dad was only four years old. I have never met him. When my dad talks about his father, the most prominent memory that comes up is that Dad didn’t get to ride in the rumble seat on the way to the funeral — his brother and cousin did.

That’s it. That’s the memory. And I don’t even know what a rumble seat is.

My grandma, for reasons known mainly to her, didn’t talk about Grandpa. Dad was not raised with the type of stories that keep a person’s memory alive. I remember asking my grandma, a truly wonderful woman, a simple question — Did Grandpa have red hair? — and having her respond, “I don’t remember,” before quickly changing the subject.

Boyce Rawlins has not been a grandpa to me. He’s just a name on a four-generation chart.

One day, when I was seventeen, I was in my grandma’s basement looking through a box of old photographs. One caught my attention. It was of a little boy, around age three, whose eyes looked just like my little brother, Michael, who was about three at the time. I stared at the old photo. On the back it said, “Boyce, 1893.” It was my grandpa. My brother had his eyes. My brother looked like my grandpa. I felt a sudden change in my heart. Boyce was no longer just a name on a genealogy chart. He was my grandpa.

I have a Grandpa Rawlins.

Several years later, I was at home with my third baby. I was sitting down to nurse him and thought I’d watch something on TV. It was in the days before streaming and we couldn’t afford cable, so there was nothing worth watching in the middle of the day. I looked through some videotapes to choose something to watch and saw one called “Sutton/Rawlins Home Movies 1946-1969.” It’s a collection of silent movies my dad’s uncle made with an 8mm movie camera. When they transferred them from film to video, my dad, uncle, and aunt recorded themselves narrating. “Oh, there’s Ma in her fish pants. She always wore those when she gardened. Remember that song she used to sing?” The narration is delightful.

I popped in this videotape, which I had watched before, with no more intent than having a distraction. One of the first clips shows a group of little cousins riding a kiddie train in Provo Canyon. The littlest child is sitting on a man’s lap. The child is my dad, and the man is his father. Another clip shows a family group at Deer Creek Reservoir. There is a beautiful Ford in the background — one of the first new cars available after the war. My grandma, her sisters and their husbands are there. It’s the late 1940s, which means that even though they were in the canyon, they wore dresses, hats, and gloves. The men were in suits. One man stands apart from the group. He starts picking up rocks to throw in the water. There is a little toddler following that man around as he throws rocks, shadowing him. The toddler is my dad and the man throwing rocks is his father.

As I watched that day, I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing down my cheeks as I suddenly realized what should have been obvious: My dad has a dad. He’s not just a name on a chart. He was an interactive daddy who loved his children.

I have a grandpa and my dad has a dad.

Who knew?

Through these and other experiences, I have come to love my Grandpa Rawlins like I love my Grandpa Christensen. I even miss him, which doesn’t make logical sense. I look forward to seeing them both someday.

I believe this is one example of the fulfillment of Malachi’s prophecy: “And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers” (D&C 2:2). The first half of this statement refers to the covenant: that the promises (covenant) made to the fathers (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) shall be planted in our hearts.

The second part of the verse is more personal: the hearts of the children shall turn to *their* fathers. Their own fathers. My own fathers. My own grandpas. People who are more than just names on a line.