the funeral

I'm procrastinating. i don't want to send out my resume (did it forever last night) and i don't want to ready/study yet. ha, and I've already cleaned my room. so i guess I'll blog. haha. but anyway here's how last weekend went:

really great! yes, it was crazy sad. but really good. so i drove down with callie and grant. and when we got there we went straight to the viewing at the funeral home. we had to stand in a formal line (as if we were in a wedding party but instead a funeral party) at first i thought this was really weird. i didn't have to do this at my granddaddy's funeral. but then i thought, you know what, this is what grandpa would've done. made everyone feel welcome. and then i thought it was really cool cause i got to meet this one (really, really elderly) guy who grew up down the street from my grandparents. yeah, i thought it was great. he was born and passed away in the same town. not many people get to do that. and i was doing okay (crying wise) until i saw his siblings. when my aunt sharlene came through i lost it. just the thought that they just lost their brother! got me crazy sad. oh and they had a slideshow of him through his life. it was really wonderful. i've never seen pictures of him as a little guy, actually i've never seen pictures of him younger than 30ish. so it was really neat to see that side. yeah, and their wedding picture (grandpa and grandma's) where on there. never seen those before either. there was this one picture that i loved though. it was a 70's picture, you could tell from the major chops running down his face, and how he was sitting just screamed: "this is my domain, be intimidated".

as with all funerals you get to find out a lot about the person that's passing. well that's what i got to find out about my grandpa. too bad i never knew this stuff so i could ask him so many questions! but it's so true how my mom put it, "he never looks back. only looking forward" so that's why he never talked about his past cause he was to focused on how to make today the most successful, and so on. but this is what i found out about my amazing grandpa:
-he was an adviser to the mayor of shanghai (yeah, Pres. Monson said he was the "china guy". haha. no joke)
-he was NATIONAL FFA president at age 20!! national! so in 1951 he was traveling all over the country to big cities, ny, chicago, etc and he met with president Truman and his cabinet men
-he was on a first name basis with henry kissinger. geesh!
-he was personal friends with pres. bush (the older, not the second, and i already knew this one)
-he was on 15+ plus boards from all over. ranging from charity work to a board at BYU, and keep in mind he's CEO of a huge firm in nyc. he never showed that he was "busy" or he was overwhelmed. he was just grandpa
-he got his masters and PhD in 2 years, not 3. i was wrong. but 2 years! that's shorter than my masters program at notre dame!

and lots of other stuff. man, i really wish i had known this stuff. i had no idea he was this kind of a person. none. no, i wouldn't have acted any differently around him, I still would have joked around with him. but man. the stories he has taken with him without sharing, kinda painful to think about. but the reason i know about the national FFA thing is cause he would write letters home to his parents when he was traveling. so those are treasured.

but the funeral itself:
so president monson doesn't go to funerals. he is just such a busy person (as can be expected, ha running the lds church and all). but he came and spoke at my grandpa's. him and elder Ballard (he's a great guy. i've met him a couple of time cause he was neighbors to my grandparents for 10 years in slc). and he spoke. he's funny! really great. and rodney haws spoke. (background about rod haws, he's amazingly brillant. he went to harvard and is now the "insurance guy", as monson calls him. just a wonderful person) so anyway he spoke from a friend point of view. and my mom gave the eulogy. did a great job. my aunt Kim spoke, did a wonderful job, and my aunt Gaye spoke. did a great job too. i was crying through all. and my dad gave the opening prayer, which was wonderful. he set the tone and did a great job. ha, his new bishopric calling his really making him "churchy"! kinda weird. but really nice. ha. but as my dad put it, don staheli (my grandpa) got his own general conference. what a way to go. it just goes to show what an amazing person he was.

and it's weird, i never felt that close to him, but i am having a much harder time with his death vs. my granddaddy- my dad's dad. it just makes me so sad that i can't call him and tell him about all my new endeavors. especially now with school. and i'm ACTUALLY doing well this time around. hahaha, not failing out! haha. but this is life. it's a cycle. the same weekend he had his funeral one of my good friends from the city got married. so something has ended and a new phase in her life has begun. cycle of life.

but all in all it was great to see all my mom's side of the family. we all reminisced on Saturday after the funeral. and that was wonderful. hearing stories about grandpa was nice. then me Callie, Grant and Austin came back to northern (the good part) Utah. haha. yeah definitely realized i never want to live down in southern Utah. ugh, nope. not my cup of tea. but then i got to visit with my aunt Debbie, uncle Bruce for awhile! it was great. got hear a little bit about my uncles family history (which is really neat) and a little info about mine, on my dad's side. then drove up to Logan and didn't fall asleep at the wheel. i was nervous for a second, but i made it up here fine.

so that's the weekend. it was really good.