Good Bye's - Dedicated to Grandpa Baity.

Recently a friend of mine left town to move up north.  Good luck Terra.  I will miss you.  I have to find a new movie partner.   I am excited for her because she is beginning a chapter in her life that is long over due.  However, that still meant having to say Good bye.

After saying good bye to this friend, the word good bye has been floating around in my head this week

Brett and I moved around a lot when we were first married.  Brett was in the Navy, we literally moved from one coast to another, and since we rented we moved about every year for the first 10 years of our marriage.  That is a lot of good byes.


There are tons of songs with the word Good Bye in them.  Carpenters, Good bye to love.  Super-tramp's, Good bye Stranger.  Jackson Five, Never can say Good bye.  And of course Elton's, Good bye yellow brick road.

But the word good bye also brought up a great memory of my great-grandpa.  My Grandpa lived to be in his mid nineties.  If you haven't noticed yet I am blessed with good jeans.  Lots of people in my family live past 90.

My favorite description of this grandpa is from Brittany when she was real young.  She said  "Is he the Grandpa who lives in the little house in the country and spits in a can?"  That was a pretty good description.

There are a lot of neat stories I could tell you about my Grandpa, one would be that he accept Christ in his 90's.  The odds of someone being saved at such an age are rare to none.  But I am glad I have the hope and promise that I will get to see him again someday.

When I think of my Grandpa I picture him standing in his drive as you backed out to leave.  There he stood skinny as a bean pole, in his overalls and cap.  He always walked you out to the car, and he would never tell you Good bye, he would just wave with his pointer finger.

He lived by himself after my great grandma died, I always felt like theirs would be one of those great love stories where when one died the other one would follow shortly after from a broken heart,  Though obviously God had a better story in place for my Grandpa.  He wasn't ready for him yet.

My Grandpa had one of those freak things happen where he was getting up from his chair, or something simple and he broke a hip. (I think it was his hip).  Anyway he had to be hospitalized for a few days, possible the only time he was ever in the hospital.  While he was in there, he had contact with all those people in his life he loved, kids, grand-kids, and great grand-kids.  Everyone either made it to the hospital to see him, or talked to him on the phone, or sent him flowers, had some form of contact with him.

Brett and the kids and I went over from St Louis to see him while he was there.  When we got ready to leave his room Grandpa told us all good bye. First time I had heard him use those words. I knew when I walked out of that room that would be the last time I saw my Grandpa alive.

He got released and got to go home to his own house a few days later.  He was only home a short time before he passed away.  But God had arranged for him to get to tell all of his loved ones good bye. What an awesome Good bye blessing for all of us.

                                           My great grandparents, Baity and Edna Krutsinger

Ecclesiastes 3:1-2b  "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:  A time to be born, and a time to die.............it could just as easily say a time to say hello and a time to say Good Bye!!!!