Tribute to a friend

This is Jake's grandpa Earl Wilcox. For the last three months I have been privileged to sit beside him and hold his hand every day after work. We shared stories about our lives with each other, told jokes, and talked about the world together. He passed away last Saturday and today we attended his funeral. I could write a paragraph about why he was special to me and why I loved him, but it can be summed up in one sentence. He was an amazing man.

My "other" family.

We had this blanket made for Jake's grandparents for their birthdays. 

He will be greatly missed, but I like to read this poem to remind myself that we didn't say goodbye today. It's more of a see you later.

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.
Then someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!"
"Gone where?"
Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear the load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!" There are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: "Here she comes!"
And that is dying.
~Henry Van Dyke