Memorial Day is coming soon. It was on Memorial Day 2009 that we held a memorial for my grandfather Ed Craig. He lived to be a little over 101.
Granddad was an incredible man. He was a rancher, horse trainer, rodeo judge, bull -dogger, rodeo stock contractor, leather- crafter, and so fun to be around. He loved to dance, and was very good at it. He loved to listen to all types of music; big band and country I think were his favorites. He braided reins, made decorative wooden boxes, and hat racks. He was always doing some kind of craft. Granddad could even grow roses and bake lemon pies! He was a man of many talents!
I wrote this poem for his 100th birthday.
Ed Craig, Centennial Man
What words could tell the story?
what thoughts could understand?
What eyes would believe the visions
of a hundred years so grand?
Oh, how I wish that I could watch
the movie of your life,
the changes you have witnessed,
all the joys, the love, the strife!
The sounds and smells, the tastes of life,
from your youth of yesteryear,
are they as different as I think, Granddad,
from the years we’re in now, here?
Today we take for granted
inventions witnessed by your eyes;
moving pictures from Thomas Edison,
planes now flying through our skies,
telephones and cameras,
refrigerators for our house,
back then it was a rodent,
now we have a computer “mouse.”
You saw the miracle of penicillin,
phonographs that played a tune,
horrors of the Holocaust,
and man walking on the moon.
The assignation of John Kennedy,
the march of civil rights,
the cloning of a sheep,
Titanic sinking in the night.
What a time that you have lived in.
What stories you can tell!
Do you know you’re looked up to
for a life you live so well?
What do you see, when you look back
on this world for 100 years?
Do you stand in awe and amazement?
Or does today’s world bring you tears?
No matter how the world has changed,
one thing remains as true;
that I, and our Great Lord, Granddad…
forever, will love you!
Sheryl Craig Russell
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