My maternal grandfather passed away on Wednesday, December 21st. He was 80 years old. Here is the obituary. I am glad that we were able to see him briefly when we passed through St. George last summer on our way into the great northwest.
Grandpa was an outdoorsman and a military man, so naturally, most of my memories with him are tied to fishing and shooting guns. In later years, when we would visit, mostly we would just watch movies and talk. My favorite memory of Grandpa is when we spent Christmas with him and Grandpa "Buttons" the year Shaunie and I were married. He read a very colorful version of "T'was the Night Before Christmas" and all of us were in stitches. Grandpa was funny, charismatic, and was an expert at using a well placed swear word. He was a tough man and usually we wouldn't say "I love you" to each other but once at the end of a phone call I inadvertently did do. His response reveals much about his character, in his southern Utah accent he said, "Well I love you too. Hell, I love all you little farts". I think he was referring to all of his grand kids and great grand kids.
I have vague memories of going to his house when I was younger. He had a VCR and we could watch movies on his TV. That was rare at the time. He used to drive truck long haul and I remember meeting him at a truck stop somewhere just to say "hello" briefly. The first time Shaunie stayed at his house with me, when we left he said, "Now I want you to know that I've been on my best behavior and I haven't cussed the whole time you were here." He was on his best behavior. When Evelyn was a baby he didn't want to hold her because he was afraid that we would drop her. He enjoyed seeing the kids grow up and warm up to him enough to give him a hug and kiss before we would leave.
Grandpa and Grandma Hafen divorced when I was too young to remember, but he later married a wonderful woman named Beulah, and she insisted that we call her Grandma "Buttons". After Grandpa and Buttons married he mellowed out quite a bit. It was always nice to visit them, they were both very kind and loving, grandpa in his own way. He had a hat tree in his basement and all of the hats he collected while driving tuck proudly hung on the hat tree, including my favorite, a yellow one with a large, fake, poo on the brim. He had several old rifles hanging in his basement, my Dad and brother Dan helped hang much of the drywall in that basement. His home felt like a home to us and we felt welcome there. When we saw him last summer he had been sick for nearly a year and he and Buttons were both tired. He advised me to do what I could to avoid getting old. We only stayed for a bit because we didn't want to wear them out. It is strange to write about him in the past tense, he's always been there. Despite the fact that I've had relatives die before, I continue to believe that they will go on living forever, and that they will always be there, offering us a bed to sleep in, asking us if we'd like to stay a bit longer, giving us reassuring hugs when we we leave. I love my Grandpa Hafen and I will miss him. The world is a less funny place because of his absence.
