documenting...

i need to document something for matt.

matt's earliest childhood memory was of his grandfather's funeral, so it goes without saying that he has no other memories of his grandfather. and other than occasional things like "he was a quiet man.", matt's family doesn't talk about grandpa thaete much either. matt has always felt like he was missing out on something because he didn't really *know* his grandpa.

when matt started coming to our church, he met our pastor, don, for the first time. when don heard matt's last name, he said "thaete... are you by chance related to..." and it turned out that several years ago, don had pastored matt's grandparents' church in lynden, wa.

flash forward about 5 years to yesterday. matt was tearing down after church and had a thought - he asked don how much he remembered about grandpa thaete. don replied "i knew him well - would you like to know about him?"

so don shared a few things with matt, and the result of the conversation was some closure. matt appreciated knowing more about his grandfather.

some things we learned:

*grandpa thaete was a Bible salesman for most (all?) of his life, and he and grandma quite literally survived praying for his paycheck.
*when grandpa fell ill near the end of his life, God pressured don to tell grandpa that he wouldn't recover from this. don did, grandma got angry. when grandpa passed away, grandma apologized.
*grandpa wasn't necessarily a "quiet man" - but he was very intentional, choosing his words carefully. (and it seems, if he didn't believe that what he had to say was necessary or important, he simply didn't say it... perhaps that's why he was often thought to be a "quiet man".)

just wanted to write that down.