Finally Home

The Reverend Thomas Sayers

May 15, 1925 - October 8, 2010

My Grandpa Tom talked about home. All. The. Time.

And he totally got that this world wasn't it.

He was only passing through.

Yesterday afternoon he made it home to Heaven.

We went out to visit him in January when we heard his health was beginning to decline. But then there was a drastic change in April, and he's had several days between then and now that were supposed to be his last. We didn't think at all that he would see his birthday in May, but he did--and kept fighting.

In early September I saw airfare drop pretty significantly. I was already staring at the flights when an email came in on my phone about my grandfather's health. Next thing we knew, we were headed to California. These photos were from January. My brother took a few photos from our September trip, but those are a bit too sacred to share publicly.

When I walked into his hospital room, I just about walked past his bed because I didn't recognize him. Only his tattoos on his forearms from his time in the Navy truly convinced me it was him. He was barely over a hundred pounds and was largely unresponsive.

After some time with us all in the room, I asked for some time alone with Grandpa. I sang an old hymn that I knew was precious to him, and his eyes shot open for a moment. Then without even thinking about it, I began speaking Jesus' words from John 14:2-3 over him: "In My Father's house there are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with Me--that where I am, you may be also." And as these words came out that I honestly haven't even thought of in years, Grandpa sat up, opened his eyes up wide and looked at me, then gasped and sank back into the bed. And it didn't even surprise me that this man who was beyond weary and withering away used the little strength he had to respond to the Word of God.

I told him I knew I would see him again. I tried to take those moments to cover him in the truth he loved and carried and proclaimed in his health.

I still think it's the providence of God that afforded us the chance to have those moments with him. He had been in kidney failure for 6 months and was a shadow of his former self by the time we were able to get out there. I am so grateful for those moments though--it meant everything to be able to speak over him the words that had came to mean everything to him. And it seemed it meant something to him, too.

Grandpa, you're leaving behind a congregation of friends and a church building you helped build with your two strong hands. You're leaving behind a harmonica that you played beautifully. You're leaving behing memories of all those times you popped out your dentures to make us laugh hysterically, of the Strawberry Shortcake backpack you gave me, of trips to Round Table Pizza in Sonora. You're leaving behind your four daughters, ten grandchildren, and lots of great-grandchildren. You're leaving your longtime home on Wigwam Road. But you're right where you were created to be now, Grandpa. You talked about it all the time--now you're there. Of course it's probably way more than you ever dreamed. But you're with Jesus. And I know I will see you again.

Until then! I love you, Grandpa.