To our Grandpa Smith, with love..

{as a side note before i get started, i thought that i could figure out a way to organize this better, but its not happening today, as you can see}

It is Memorial Day weekend and today we drove up to Kaysville to visit Grandpa Smith's grave. This post is going to be dedicated to him. Paul Grant Smith. An amazing man. A man who was taken from us way too soon. A grandpa who always had a smile on his face and a giggle in his heart. As i watched his wife reverently look down on his grave i couldnt help picture his warm smile looking down on the site of his posterity visiting him.

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  As his son threw his daughter up in the air, just to see a smile on her face...
  
  

As his wife thoughtfully picked the purple iris' that he had planted from seed and placed them in a vase on his headstone...






As his grandkids found the wonders of a wiggly worm near by....

As his darling new daughter in law tried to run from the camera in her giant cast....

As his granddaugter was learning to stand all by herself and possibly at any moment take that first step...

He watched and smiled as his grandkids who only left him a short time ago, looked upon his grave and wondered what their grandpa was like...

He must've wanted to reach down and put his arms around these little precious babies...

And then around these precious babies of his own...and his beautiful wife...

I remember Paul and his sweet disposition, his love for all the kids, his fun grandpa ways, his loving big smile, his pens and notebook in his pocket always ready to write down anything that might hold value later..So to my kids- I wish that you would've known him better, i wish you could've seen that warm smile with that twinkle in his eye, and how he lit up whenever he saw his kids. I wish you could've seen him get flustered whenever they would try and argue points with him, I wish you saw him stumble over words when he would tell us his stories, and how every once in awhile we would get one out of him that was a story about his mischevious childhood days.. and the blushing smiling face he had as he would tell it... I wish he was physically here to give you hugs and watch you grow up, but i know that he is here in spirit and that he watches over you and that he smiles and giggles and cries with you.. I know he loves you and he's proud of you..

So to you Paul and to you Gen, thank you for being such amazing examples of grace and unconditional love and thank you for being such wonderful grandparents, even though you feel like you are doing it alone sometimes Gen, know that we feel him with us too. And we love you both. We look forward to the day to see his happy face again and give him a big hug.