Mortality

[East Bay Rider]

My wife's grandfather passed away on Sunday and the funeral was today. I was a pall bearer and my wife was charged with writing and delivering the eulogy. The week has been full of reminiscing and "interviewing" her father and aunt for life details. Quite a bit of work actually.
Her grandfather was a lot like "Walter" in Jeff Dunham's ventriloqist act. Kind of loud and boisterous, crotchedy and usually angry about something.
Through the time and effort used in writing the eulogy, we were able to break down his behavior and rationalize a lot of it and accept the rest.
I think the eulogy task was very helpful. We were charged with finding nice things to say and so went looking for the positive. In doing so we learned nice things and also learned the circumstances behind the not-so-nice.
After she completed it I found myself wishing I could have talked to him a bit more both to learn and also to give him some support.
So what I've discovered is that if you really want to understand someone, charge yourself the task of finding positive things about them and writing them down. Maybe if more people did this we would all have a better understanding of each other.
What an eye opener.