On June 5, my Grandpa Sundin passed away. A little more than a week later, I delivered this eulogy at his service:


I rarely get the opportunity to talk about my Grandpa Sundin. Basically, as far as I'm concerned, he's God's blueprint for grandpas. His eyes twinkled, and the twinkles danced. He had an infectious smile you couldn't help but throw right back at him. The most indelible image I have of him is the jet-black hair, and the pipe that jutted from his lip as he hunched over a piece of wood and turned it into a woodshed, or a house, or a small country. The hair eventually went gray, and the pipe disappeared, but the sweetness stayed behind, even near the end.
(At this point I ad-libbed a story about what Grandpa did the day I was born. I was his first grandson, so you could imagine his jubilation. He scotch-taped a proclamation to his front door--which I still have--announcing my birth, and that I was born with a full head of teeth and a one-word vocabulary. No points for guessing what that word was.)

All my life I've been in awe of him. When I was really young, he was my favorite person in the world. The sweet Swede. A soft touch. Sometimes an easy mark for an enterprising, semimischievous oldest grandson, but not very often. I remember him coming over to our house one morning, when we still lived in Whittier, to wake me up for school. I must have been about five. He shook me awake, and I looked at him and said, very seriously, "No, Grandpa, school is closed today." He played along with me, until I pretty much gave myself away, ending a promising career as a professional sleeper.

Going to my grandparents' house was like a trip to a magic shop. The smells that greeted you were a mix of sweet tobacco and love. Grandma would open the door and always seem delighted and surprised to see you. "Well! Hello, sweetheart!"--a greeting that hasn't changed. Grandpa'd get up from the couch and shake your hand, and you'd literally feel the importance of family traveling from his body to yours. He'd join you in games, he'd be interested in everything you said and did--he was a little kid's dream.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to see him much after our family moved to Oregon in 1979. But he and Grandma typically came every summer, or we'd head down to Whittier for holidays. Either way was fine with me, because it was just a joy to be with them. If the Sundins were supposed to arrive on a Friday, Friday never came soon enough. And when Friday came, the hour never came soon enough. And after they DID arrive, it never seemed like they stayed long enough. As a funny aside, our pets went absolutely nuts whenever Grandpa came. They'd sense him, or hear him in the yard and demand immediate affection, immediate attention, which I always thought was remarkable: They only saw him once a year or so; how in the world could they remember him? But the second he showed up, we had to fight our dogs for the right to say hello. It was like he was their grandpa too. And when we'd go to California to visit them (much to our dogs' dismay), my brother and I would always sleep as long as we could, in hopes that the distance would be covered in an eyeblink, and that we'd wake up as the car made its way down Redman and turned into the driveway of the little green house. Whether they came to us or us to them, it didn't matter. The feeling of anticipation and home was always the same.

I always associate the word "home" with Grandpa. Even as a little kid, I knew that carpentry was the perfect occupation for him, because he carried within him all the qualities necessary for a successful home. The drywall, the sheetrock, the hammer and nail are only the medium. A house is nothing without warmth and joy. A spiritual roof is just as necessary as the physical one. Throughout the city of Whittier are such monuments, and there exist very few of us who have not benefited from his craftsmanship.

There was something magical about who he was and what he did. In one of the scrapbooks assembled for my grandparents' 50th anniversary in 1996, among the well-wishers and ruminations about cabins and trips and water-skiing, is a letter I sent to him--not to commemorate the anniversary; it was actually in response to something that had happened to him, something that had put him in the hospital. It shook me up, a verification that despite what I thought of him, Grandpa Sundin was a mortal man. He could be hurt. And even at the age of 23, that idea was unsettling. I don't remember exactly what I wrote, but I told him that, as Grandpa Sundin, it was his job to live forever. He responded with a very sweet hand-written letter that thanked me, said he didn't really feel he deserved all the nice things I said about him, but that he appreciated them, and also: "I can't guarantee that I'll live forever, but I'll give it a try." It was very tongue-in-cheek, but as far as I'm concerned, he kept his promise.

So in closing, I'd just like to say that it warms my heart to see all of you here. He touched all of our lives in ways that none of us, including him, will ever understand. It's amazing to think how simple it seems: Grandpa met Grandma, and here we are. Two kids became two parents and five grandchildren, and the family only continues to grow, under the roof he built for us all. And as long as we're here, as long as we remember every twinkle, every smile, every kind word, every laugh, every handshake, every hug, every sweet smell and sound, every moment shared and private, every scrap of memory in which he lives, Grandpa Sundin's house will always stand, and he will always be home.