A Grandfather’s Legacy

My grandfather was one in a million. Actually, using current numbers of worldwide coronavirus deaths, he was four in a million.

Born in Portland in 1928, Glenn Smith attended Washington High School. There he met Shirley Pagh, who would be his wife until an international pandemic felled this giant of a man. Yes, he was 6’4”, but his heart and his love seemed even bigger. Both elderly, they knew their years were numbered, but never would any of us have imagined the way we’d lose our hero.

After they married in 1949, he became a ranger in the Forest Service, moving from ranger station to ranger station, until ending up in South Lake Tahoe, California. During his life, he climbed Mt. St. Helens before it blew, trained many for the Coast Guard Auxiliary, and flew lookout on planes up and down the coast to keep the nation safe after 9-11.

My grandmother was already Gigi for Great-Grandma, but we were stuck on what to call Grandpa. Then we watched The Santa Clause with Tim Allen. Upon his arrest in the movie, he gives his name as “Santa Claus,” “St. Nick,” and the iconic-in-this-house “Papa Gigo.” Glenn Smith was Papa Gigo thereafter.

Speaking of Santa Claus, my family had an amazing, unique tradition on Christmas Eve. Poor Grandpa; he always missed it. Once he had gone into the bathroom, Silly Santa would appear, black bearded, with a dishcloth or pantyhose on his head. The Christmas before my brother and I went to Africa with my missionary parents, he gave me a rope to catch a lion. You can see by the expression on my face that I was not sure that rope was going to be long enough. He gave my brother a snowball, since there wouldn’t be any winter weather in Nigeria. By the time it was gifted, it was simply a baggy of water, the snow long melted. Nearly a decade later, Silly Santa gave me fake eyelashes, so I could bat my eyelashes at all the boys I was crazy about.

On March 18, he began coughing and spiked a fever. At the urging of Yamhill County Health, I pushed to get through to his doctor. As testing had barely begun, the doctor set up a clandestine meeting in her parking lot. My mother, his eldest child, masked and gloved up and opened all her windows to drive him there. They parked overlooking the golf course on that sunny, beautiful day, the breeze rustling through the car. They didn’t talk about important things because everything already had been said. He lived a life of no regrets. That was the last time he left his room.

Though he had a cough, he never felt respiratory distress, even when his oxygen level dropped to the low 90s. His fever faded away, the aches eased, and we thought he had beaten an awful monster. Then on Day 10 he became too weak and disoriented to stay home any longer, and my grandma called 911. Hours later, he was gone.

Reality already feels like fiction, and now I face this truth: my 91-year-old grandfather, Glenn Smith, passed away on 3/28/20 from COVID-19. He left behind his wife of almost 71 years, a handful of children, a passel of grandkids (14), a respectable amount of great-grandchildren (25), and even a beautiful great-great-grand.

However, because he died of such an infectious disease, he died alone. His wife said her goodbyes as the EMTs loaded him onto a gurney and wheeled him out of the backdoor of their independent living unit in Newberg. He was the second resident to test positive, the second to pass away. None of us can go comfort our matriarch in quarantine. We can’t even travel to comfort each other.

When calling to break the news of his death, the doctor said the wrinkles around mouths and eyes of dying adults declare what kind of life they had led. “A happy one, wasn’t it?” Yes, and we are all heartbroken at the loss. Which is his own fault. If he hadn’t been such a fabulous husband, such an admirable father, such a loving grandparent, then we wouldn’t miss him this much.

Some might say coronavirus killed him, but Grandpa would argue it was the Lord’s timing for his life to be done here on earth. Acts 17:26 in the Bible says that God “marked out their appointed times in history.” We as Oregonians are being asked to take extreme measures of staying home, self-isolating, and practicing social distancing. However, it’s easy to be lulled into complacency. Sometimes we need to hear a story, see a picture, to remember why we are sacrificing as we are. Stay home; stay safe. Be gracious; be kind. Keep others alive.

If you spent even one minute with my grandpa—if you were his server at McDonalds or a passerby on a walking path—he would ask you about your faith and offer a small copy of the New Testament. He wanted each and every person to hear about Jesus’s life on earth and death on the cross to pay for our sins, and His resurrection that brings everyone who follows Him hope.

Hope. That is the legacy left by this mighty man, and it’s a message we all need to hear in the midst of anxiety or panic or job loss or sickness. The hope of no more sickness, the hope of heaven.