Danno

When my grandmother (MawMaw) died less than 3 months ago after a long fight with physical and mental illness no one knew what to say. We didn't remember the woman that we had grown up with, as she had been slowly beaten down by time. This Sunday morning when the curtain closed on the life of her husband we all knew what to say, we just didn't want to say it.

It's easy to remember him. It seems like he was just here, the same man he had always been. I walked through his house this morning; read his hand writing and sat in the seats he would have. It was Danno that bought a beach house for his family that I've slept in for twenty three summers. It was Danno that bought a house with a pool for his grandchildren, a pool I visited every summer of my youth. This is the man who I remember taking me as a kid to feed ducks, teaching me how to use a shoe horn, always slipping a candy into my hands, taking me to movies, and knowing my friends. I can't help, while thinking of the man who called me his best friend, that part of my life has ended.

I miss him because I knew him. You don't hate death until someone you know well is suddenly gone. I think Danno always hated death. In the movie Vanilla Sky the character David Ames asks "Isn’t that what being young is about, believing secretly that you would be the one person in the history of man that would live forever?" I think that thought may have been what shaped my Danno to be who he was. At times he was larger than life; jolly, searching for laughter, and always un-apologetically wanting to be a kid. He wanted for this to be Heaven.

We all find out that this is NOT Heaven, and we are comforted only by Jesus' words as Eugene Peterson translates John 12:24 "Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you'll have it forever, real and eternal." Isn't that the only way I can let go now? To know that the future holds life only because of what we lost yesterday; that Heaven is something we have to look forward to, not regret that we never found here?

I think, if Danno could talk to me right now it would be him saying Jesus' words this time: "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." He was right all along I guess. So when I'm sitting on Topsail beach, or bringing out the last Christmas present to see someone's face light up, or standing on my tip toes to wave down at my grandson when he graduates from high school, I will be a kid. I will be simple; I will trust. I stood on his back porch today and cried and said "I miss you Danno. I love you." We are his legacy. So when my sister and I drove home this morning singing "how great Though art" to God, we had to be simple and trust to do it. We are children and I think Danno would be happy.

Favorite food: Jelly
Favorite song: Fourth of July by Ben Shive