My grandfather passed away this week, just a few months shy of his 100th birthday.
He lived in Miami, not that far away from my mom who lives a little over half an hour away from me here in Orlando. The trip to south Florida and back was about eight hours and to get there, we had to traverse some pretty bad storms with lots of rain, making it very hard to see the road at times.
I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t think about turning around. The storm would have been a good excuse to have missed the funeral. Others had good excuses and made the decision to not attend.
But my mom wanted to honor her dad by being there and I wanted to honor my mom by taking her.
We often hear that we should “be there” for others. But that’s easier said than done, isn’t it?
That’s because being there is inconvenient. We all have our own lives to live, people to take care of, jobs to go to, and good excuses if we look hard enough. Some of the people who mattered the most to my grandfather were unable to attend his funeral, and that’s okay. We almost didn’t, either.
My grandfather was always very good to me. Every Christmas as far back as I can remember, he’d send me a firetruck. I was in my late twenties when he realized I was a little too old for firetrucks.
But sending those firetrucks every year was his way of being there. Of telling me that I mattered. That he was thinking of me. He wasn’t always in his family’s lives, but when it mattered, he was.
Doing the right thing is never the wrong thing. Being a friend, son, daughter, mom or dad, grandson or granddaughter – just being there for someone is inconvenient. Maybe that’s the point.