Skip Graham, The “Money Man”

(I actually wrote this yesterday around 4pm, completely unaware that it would take me until midnight to get home due to a door malfunction on the plane but hey, I made it! So please enjoy.)

I am sitting in LAX going over my travel Checklist:

- Laptop loaded with the latest episode of the Bachelorette? Check.
- Cell phone and headphones loaded with the newest music? Check.
- Down blanket rolled up into the smallest ball it can achieve and shoved into my purse? Check.
- Latte? Check.
- Flight on time? Well, not so much but I’ll get there!

I am heading right into the little airport in Santa Rosa, California where my dad will be impatiently waiting and then drive me the ten minutes between the airport and our house.

This particular trip is a little more significant and solemn than others. My grandpa, Harvard Eugene Graham, Jr. passed away a few weeks ago. Not that we called him that though. No, he was Grandpa Skip and one of the most wonderful men I will ever have the privilege of knowing and loving. Tomorrow we are holding a “Celebration of Life” in his honor and, if you had had the pleasure of knowing him, you would understand just how appropriate that is.

Grandpa Skip loved. He loved golf, pistachio nuts, Kahlua and cream, red zinfandel wine, my grandma, all of his (very large) family, and me. I am very fond of dancing and no wonder when some of my very earliest memories are of Grandpa singing out square dance calls even if no one was dancing or, when I was a little taller, holding me tight up against his wonderfully round belly and dancing me around the living room. As I got older he taught me many more wonderful lessons like, always return his things on time if you borrowed them (or he would charge you interest), men are out to conquer the world, and every day that he has known his Savior has been a blessing. I also learned to warn any boyfriend I brought home that he could bet his life on Grandpa Skip cornering him for an hour to find out who he is was, where he’s from, who his parents are, what he wants to do with his life and does he know the Lord Jesus Christ as his own personal Savior.

Seeing Grandpa Skip was always a lot of fun. Ask him how he was and he would promptly inform you, “Well, I woke up this morning and the good Lord gave me another day!” or wish him goodbye and he would hug you just to say, “I’m glad you got to see me.” Grandpa and Grandma owned a financial planning company (two huge influences towards my desire to study business) and he started out at a large insurance firm where he was dubbed “Skip Graham, The Money Man” since he was the top producer for many years. It was almost like growing up famous because everywhere I went and everyone I met either knew personally or had heard of my grandparents! I loved it. But mainly just because I loved them.

So despite the significant and solemn occasion to be traveling home, I am greatly looking forward to spending the weekend celebrating the life of such a wonderful man who was always full of a passion for life and the people around him.