Light Be the Sand that lies on...

"No man ever died more regretted by his personal friends than John A. Quitman. He was in every relation of life a true man, chivalrously brave, nobly generous, and sternly faithful to all that enobles human nature. Had his brain been equal to his soul, he had been the world's wonder." - The Memories of Fifty Years, William Henry Sparks.

My grandfather, the greater of the (once) living James Andersons, has regretfully gone away. Missed tremendously and yet time must come for us all, and he was ready. Lives like his are to be celebrated not mourned (as the Irish know), and so while his passing involves tears, they will be wiped from smiling cheeks. The truest gentleman, the more remarkable the love and caring that filled his immense heart.

I walked through Westminster Cathedral in February 2002, on one of the first days of what would prove to be perhaps my favorite week on record. And looking on the grave stones and the remarkable English tributes, I could not help but write many down. One struck me in particular, and not because I could understand it, because I confess I still do not. But because it rang somehow true in its perplexity in making me think then of my immaculate grandfather, in one of those (dis)associative things. I must seek it out again next month. For apparently there was a man, Peter Mason, aged 82, who died in Sept. 1738, about which they (also) said:

"He was in every relation
A juft and good man,
and what you, in your laft moments,
may with great comfort rejoice to be."

A strangely predictory sort of epitaph, I guess. On my best days, I can only hope so. Oh, granddad. I love you so very, very much.