Brooke, Brighton and Addison: Theron Yates

My Grandpa Yates passed away while we were in the middle of remodeling his basement. Life has a strange timing for things. But I am grateful for the tender mercies of certain events that happened before he passed. He was 95 and had a long wonderful life. As I was looking through the pictures of the funeral it brought back so many memories of him. His funny stories, his cute smile, his great attitude, and his love for his family. His passing was bitter sweet. I miss him terribly but it was his time to go.

I am so ever grateful for the gospel and the knowledge that we will see him again. And I am grateful he is with his wife again. Every night while putting my grandpa in bed I would ask him if there was anything he needed and he would say "yes, I need a wife!". I would laugh and tell him that I will find him one but it might be a while because I want to find him the best one. He would laugh and say okay. It always made me smile and now grandpa you have a wife again and the absolute best one out there.

The last story I heard from my grandpa was when he was in hospice care. A week earlier he was in a lot of pain and so they took him to the hospice center. They had concluded that part of his intestine had died and that he wasn't going to live much longer. He was feeling a little bit better though and so the plan was to take him home and let him spend the remainder of his days there. I went in that afternoon to the hospice center to spend some time with him and he was feeling well enough to go outside. I pushed him in his wheelchair around outside and we went to see the horses that were in the field by his room. He told me about how he used to own work horses but he didn't like horses much. They did help to get the work done though. In the winter they were useful too because there would be snow drifts over the fences and the horses and sled would go right over the fences. He also told me how the horses we were looking at were riding horses because of how their legs were built. He then went on and repeated that story several times always asking me where we were at, at the end.

He did however mention once that he was not ever going to be going back to his home. I told him the plan was for him to be going home tomorrow. He just looked at me funny and looked away. I think he knew more then all of us about his future because the next day his health took a turn for the worse and he never went home. He passed away the next week on September 16, 2011. The two weeks before he passed away many tender mercies happened and I look back at that time grateful for answers to prayers. It is never easy to see a loved one pass away.

I have many great pictures from the funeral and couldn't decide which ones to post. So I put a couple of my favorite up and then put a slide show up.