Missing Two Wonderful People

In Memory of Louise D Gentry

It’s been a tough few days.  My grandma passed away this past Saturday, along with a close friend of mine in the architecture program on Sunday.  

My grandma was a very special lady in a lot of ways.  She and my grandpa met at the deaf school in Morganton.  They truly belonged together if anyone ever has.  When my grandpa passed away back in 1996 it changed a lot of things for my grandma.  They were both completely each other’s worlds.  They had three boys including my dad who were all born hearing.  The youngest, Michael, passed away very early at the age of 21 in a motorcycle accident.  My dad’s other brother, Johnny, moved away.  Thus, my dad always felt it was his responsibility to stick by his parents and take care of them.  

The life that a deaf person lives is very different from out own.  They communicate and understand the world completely different from the way a hearing person does.  My grandpa went deaf in his teenage years due to some ear infections, and for the most part lived a fairly normal life.  He worked, was active in his church, and very much a part of the community.  Because he was able to hear to begin with he was able to lip read and could talk, so communication wasn’t that difficult for him.

My grandma on the other hand was born deaf.  She was very spoiled in a lot of ways; my grandpa always got her everything she ever wanted.  Her life was limited, though, and once my grandpa passed it was like her world had ended in a lot of ways.  

Ironically enough she lived one day past my grandpa’s birthday, to January 7th 2006.  She died at the age of 86 and lived a very full life.  Her love was always flowers and she could make absolutely anything grow.  One of the very first things that I learned to sign from my grandma was the word beautiful.  She would always be working outside around their house planting flowers, pulling weeds, or caring for them in some way.  When I would approach her to talk to her she would always comment on the flowers being beautiful and look for reassurance from everyone that they really were beautiful.  

One of her biggest loves were her African Violets.  When you walked into their house the room immediately to the left was the dining room and received the perfect type and amount of lighting for these flowers to grow.  They are actually very difficult flowers to grow, but not for my mema.  Right up until the past couple of weeks she would keep them watered and cared for.  My mom told me that one of the last times she’d gone in to check on them, that one of the leaves had broken off and she had found a way to plant the leaves and make them re-root; that’s why she had too many of them.  We counted over 50 planted in the dining room alone.  The day before she passed away every single one of them bloomed.  It was almost like a sign of her life about to begin, and being the day after my grandpa’s birthday, that they were going to be reunited.  

I think the hardest part of my grandma passing was feeling like I didn’t really know who she was.  Even though they lived right beside us, I was never able to connect with them like I was able to connect with my grandma on my mom’s side.  I wonder sometimes if I could have done things a bit differently.  My older sister (half sister) had a lot of the same issues as I.  She was not introduced to me until I was almost 15, and she too felt a loss of connection – like she never really knew who her grandparents were.  

My dad has taken this pretty hard.  He stuck right by them his entire life.  My grandma never really left home very much.  Once in a while she would go to eat dinner with us or would go to Wal-Mart to pick up a few odds and ends.  I’m sure losing parents is one of the hardest things you ever go through in life, but on the flip side of that, losing a child has to be extremely hard as well.

In Memory of David E Franklin

I met David in second year of architecture school.  We were in Linda Samuels class together.  David was the kind of person who would do absolutely anything for you.  When we first met David, he was a very different person.  

Starting college is always about discovering yourself.  For some reason this most always includes a lot of drunken parties.  I’m not exactly sure why this is so – maybe because the alcohol allows you to loosen up and do things that you would probably normally not do.  

When we first met David he wouldn’t go to these parties with us.  I remember talking with him about it one night in studio and him telling me that he couldn’t put himself in that situation because he had a problem with alcohol.  I didn’t really believe him very much because David was a very strong Christian and assumed what he was really saying was that he didn’t want to be around those types of parties and people.  It’s odd how certain people can give you an impression and no matter what they say to you, they still hold this stigma of being this person that you have made them, even though that may not be them at all.  

I thought the world of David.  I looked up to him in a lot of ways.  He was one of the very best in the architecture program and had so much potential.  It’s so hard to think about his life being cut so short.  He most surely would have done amazing things.

With David, I’m left with a lot of questions.  I wonder what could have been so bad to have to become so dependant on alcohol?  I wonder how something like that can take over someone’s life to the point they can’t control it?  And I wonder what’s David’s purpose was in God’s plan?  

We all go to these parties and do these things without really thinking about it.  We put ourselves in situations where our lives can be ripped from us without a seconds notice.  I hope for a lot of people it was awake up call.

For those of you who read this I would like to ask you to say an extra prayer for David’s family.  They are going through some very tough times right now and I’m sure asking themselves a lot of very difficult questions.  

I guess one of the hardest things about all of this is how different the two experiences have been for me.  I feel a sense of loss with both – a friend and a grandparent.  With my grandma there is somewhat a sense of relief.  I know she isn’t going through the pain and torment the past couple of months brought her.  I know my dad doesn’t have to stay up all night and listen for her and care for her.  I know she’s back with my grandpa… and in a lot of ways it’s a happy loss.  

With David, I’m not quite sure what to feel.  I feel more pain for his parents than anything.  I feel angry that he wasn’t given the opportunity to fulfill his dreams.  I feel he was cheated, his family was cheated, and his friends were cheated.  That’s not the right way to feel or true though.  Being at the funeral home last night showed me how much David was loved and cared for and that the same way he touched me, he touched everyone around him.  His dad said to me, “David was and always is just David.  He was the same to everyone, no matter where he went.”  I don’t think anything could describe him any better.  You will be missed.