Friday, July 1, 2016
As read at the Church Service
Friday July 1, 2016
July 1, 2016
As I am in Ireland completing an internship in Dublin, I am unable to attend the Church service this morning for my grandfather, Kenneth C. Grechko. Rev. Allen offered that I write a message to be read at the service and I thought this a welcomed and appreciated gesture. Thank you Rev. Allen. I write, not only as a personal exercise, but also so that I might express some of the sentiments I would I have conveyed to family and friends in the community should I have been able to attend. It seems that the unique thing about all humans is that we come together without fail on essentially two occasions, and those two occasions exist at polar ends of the spectrum—extreme joy and extreme sorrow. And so in the event of weddings and on the birth of children and on the occasions of death in family, we join together as a community and share in those polar extremes of emotions. And thank God for that!
Being away has forced me to reflect on how thankful I am that I have such incredible family and friends, that I have a community like ours at South Church that comes together in such solidarity to recognize both the joys and the concerns of our lives. I thank you all for being here today to honor and remember the life of my grandfather. He was truly a great man, something I realized more and more as I got older, and something I realized especially vividly during the final period of his life these last couple years. As my grandmother slipped into the terribly painful folds of dementia, my grandfather tended to his lifelong partner with a level of devotion and patience that inspired and continues to inspire me in life. As he fell ill, himself, and began the draining struggle with cancer, I saw nothing but courage and continued commitment to life and to his wife. Never once did he lose sight of what was important, and never once did I lose sight of family in its most powerful and inspiring capacity to love and support. Each of my family in turn stepped up to help with mutual care—no one more so than my father, from whom I have learned more about fatherhood and patience and the values that hold together family than I could have hoped to learn from anyone in a lifetime.
I would like to acknowledge that though today is a day of sorrow for my family and those close to us, it must be remembered that there is no goodbye to an individual of this world unless the values he holds dear cease to be put to practice by those who loved him in life. As long as my sister and mother and father and family live on in the model of love and commitment put forth by my grandfather, not a day will go by which isn’t graced by the improvement of the world through his character. So like there is no sun without dark, so it is that there is no acceptance of the great of my grandfather without the true realization that every great man shall leave the world. This is not something to cower from, in the end. In the end, it is a reminder that we all have a limited time in the world, but also a reminder that that our time lives on in the lives of those who loved us. And what a wonderful and hopeful thought that is.
God bless you all and thank you,
Max Grechko
Grandson
