If you lost someone you loved...

I am not going to stand up here and say what a great man my grandpa was, for we already know his greatness because he shared it with each of us.

A man of his caliber cannot be given justice in words, and neither can words give justice to the pain in our heart that hurts.

Now to me he was grandpa but to you he may have been something different, but to each its’ own, we all simply will miss him.

And although sadness is unavoidable, we must find happiness in the time, the time we had with him so celebration we can find.

And we have much to celebrate, so let us start his celebration of life, because even though he is absent in body, his soul is alive.

And it is alive in each of us, it is embedded in the stories he told us that we will go on to tell, embedded in the memories we have of him that we have come to know so well.

He lives on through the lives of us, the people here today, so even though he is absent in body, he in our hearts will stay.

And we should all be rest assured that he is now in the company of the divine, telling God the same stories we wish we could hear just one more time.

As people we often overlook the little things, the moments that at the time seem so small, but when we no longer have the luxury of reliving them, we realize how much they mattered after all.

As this is a celebration of life, may those moments be thought of now and embraced, and may they like my grandpa, never be replaced.

As we continue on, we take him with us wherever we are, because absence is irrelevant when it comes to what is in our heart.

We did not lose a person, we simply gained an angel and that is worth celebration, and he would want us to remember him with love and elation.

So wherever we go, we take him with, and every memory we will miss.

As our guardian angel, we embrace his new life up above, and we gathered here today to tell him how much he is loved.

For 88 years my grandpa lived in body but through soul he never dies, living on in his loved ones like my dad who has his eyes.

We cannot be angry with God because he needed him in heaven for reasons of his own, and grandpa is resting in peace, he has finally been called home.

May we not dismiss our grief, but not let it overshadow the luck we had, to be graced with a presence we will miss so very bad.

In the end, he will never be forgotten as long as we remember, and so we celebrate his life in us forever.

Our new angel, look over us, and live inside our heart, so even when we miss you, it’s not because we are apart.