Grant Lyman Reeve

This is my Grandpa Reeve. He passed away this morning. We knew his time was coming to an end. He was 94 years old. He was such a good Grandpa and had so many stories and adventures in his lifetime. I started reading his lifestory again this week knowing that he would soon be done on this earth. He grew up in the Great Depression. "Times were hard. We were allowed butter to put on our bread only if we scraped off as much as possible and returned it to the "butter-plate" to make the butter go further." I hope I will remember him every time I put butter on my bread and the sacrifices he made for his family and the great man that he was. My Grandma Reeve passed away in 1984 - I wish I could have watched their reunion this morning!

My Mom's Dad, Grant Lyman Reeve, passed away on January 22, 2017. He was 94 years old.

He is the kind of grandpa that was excited to see you and you felt important to him. He was a righteous man, and he worked hard to support his family. I loved his sense of humor.

This was my Facebook post on January 22.

Grandma Reeve passed away in 1984.  My Grandpa married his cousin, Ann McQueen, in 1985.  Ann passed away in 2008.  My sister, Diana, moved in with Grandpa in December 2008.  She lived there for several years.  Eventually they moved Grandpa to Assisted Living at the Charleston in Cedar Hills. He was aging but still doing pretty well.  He was going to go to the temple with his people last October, but that day he fell and broke his femur.  It went downhill from there.  His quality of life went down and his body was worn out.  We were praying for him to be released from his mortal body.  I am so thankful that my family got to see him on January 3 for the last time.

Lucy, Carly and I drove back to Utah so we could go to my Grandpa's funeral. There was a viewing the night before the funeral. Not a lot of people came, but it was good to talk to those family members and friends who did come.  

The funeral was an amazing spiritual feast honoring the life of a great man.

Diana gave the life sketch and did an amazing job.  My Mom, Uncle Frank, Aunt Mary and Aunt Roseanne each shared a memory.  

My mom said that even though Diana didn't wear a nametag, she was called on a mission in 2008 to help Grandpa, and now Diana and Grandpa Reeve were both released from their missions.  Diana was truly the best caretaker of Grandpa.  Even after he moved in assisted living, she visited him all the time, and he truly relied on her.  I watched her buckle his seatbelt. She would take him out to eat on his birthday.  She printed things off the computer for him. She changed the batteries in his hearing aide.  To culminate her mission, she gave the life sketch and prepared the photo displays for the funeral.

My favorite part of the funeral was singing the opening and closing songs.  Jeanette was the organist, and she plays with so much feeling.  The opening song was "Dearest, Children" and the closing song was "Oh, What Songs of the Heart."  The words to both songs apply so much to the life of Grandpa and to our knowledge of life after death, of angels watching over us, and of the love of the Savior and Heavenly Father.  Singing the closing hymn with all of my extended family imagining that my Grandpa and Grandma and their people were in heaven singing right along with us, and Jeanette playing the organ loud and with vigor was worth the drive from Canada to Utah.   The last verse she added more organ stops and cranked up the volume even more. It was powerful.  After the funeral she said, you don't usually play funeral songs so loud, but she thinks Grandpa would have liked it that way.

There is a picture of my Grandpa in the military that says, When Hitler sees this face, he will surrender.

"On behalf of the President of the United States and the people of this great nation, we present you this flag in appreciation of Grant Lyman Reeve's service in the United States Navy."

Uncle David thanking Diana for her service to Grandpa Reeve.

I am not very close to my cousins, but it was good to see them.  24 out of 29 of them were able to come to the funeral. Actually, one of them, Shawna Gagnon, who passed away when she was 4, was probably in heaven too. So I guess 25 were there.

We stayed with Doug & Emily. It was the first time Carly got to meet her cousin, Hazel.

This was Lucy texting Hanna on our journey to Montana.  Lucy and Carly were awesome traveling partners! As always, we are thankful for our traveling guardian angels.