I don’t know how it’s possible to love two people more than I love Momo and Granddaddy. Technically, I should use the verb loved, since they died years ago. But they’re still alive in me and I believe to my core that they are with God awaiting their glorified bodies.

Today after I completed a book, I looked out through a window above my desk. The sky was a leaden color that reminded me very much of the sky when I was stationed in southern Germany. It was gray, fossil-colored, the color of smoke.

For whatever reason, memories of Momo and Granddaddy washed over me like a wave. I could picture Momo in her rocking chair, and the smells of ham frying in the black cast iron skillet atop the stove and the smells of creamed corn and butterbeans. I could picture Granddaddy in his straw hat coming through the kitchen door, sweaty from working his garden in the back.

I didn’t know it fully at the time, but I was receiving an education in wisdom from those who really knew the vast difference between mere information and wisdom. A couple of nuggets of wisdom I can still hear in my mind follow:

“Worry’s like a rocking chair, Rooster; it’ll give you something to do but it won’t get you anywhere.”

And perhaps my favorite: “What’s down in the well, Rooster, comes up in the bucket.” In other words, people will show you what they’re made of; just watch. What’s down in that well will come up.

**Momo & Granddaddy, I don’t know how or even if it is possible to miss people more than I miss you, or if it’s possible to reunite deeply enough in eternity to ever repay the love you showed, the love you gave.

What was down in your wells came up in your buckets for years and years of faithfulness, and I stand as a debtor who can only say, I love you, I miss you, and I cannot wait to learn from you yet again.