Empty Chair Diaries: Entry 12

Burt’s Story

This week we attended the funeral of a friend’s father.

To us, he had always been the grumpy old man. Quiet. Depressed. A man who had lost the love of his life and eventually needed the care of a nursing home. It felt like such a familiar story.

But at his funeral, we met someone entirely different.

We heard story after story of the man he used to be. A devoted husband. A loving father. A proud grandfather and great-grandfather. A man who worked hard, provided for his family, laughed often and was deeply loved.

As his grandchildren and great-grandchildren spoke through tears, it became clear they weren’t just saying goodbye to the man they had known in recent years. They were mourning the man he had been long before illness, grief and age slowly took pieces of him away.

It made me wonder how often we look at older people and see only the final chapter.

We see the frailty, the forgetfulness, the sadness or the grumpiness. We rarely stop to imagine the young person who once danced, chased children around the backyard, built a career, fell in love, made mistakes, celebrated victories and carried a family through life.

Age has a way of hiding the extraordinary lives that came before it.

Perhaps that is why we should offer older people a little more patience, a little more kindness and a little more curiosity. Every wrinkle, every scar and every quiet moment belongs to someone who has lived a life far richer than we can see.

The empty chair left behind this week belonged to an old man.

But the stories told around it reminded us that it had once belonged to someone unforgettable.

Rest in peace, Burt.