In Memoriam - Grandpa Arnie

Sunday Morning in Ilula - March 16, 2014

Fair are the meadows,

Fair are the woodlands,

Robed in flowers of blooming spring;

Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer;

He makes our sorrowing spirit sing.

-'Beautiful Savior,' v2

It was 8am on a Sunday morning. Apart from a scattered set of clouds that hung low across the mountains near Image, the sky was a brilliant shade of blue - as clear and as calm as I have ever seen it. The warm sun shone down upon the rows of corn and vegetables that were growing on the shambas (small farms) as far the eye could see. It was a beautiful day in East Africa - a beautiful day to be alive.

At that same time, in a quiet room in Wisconsin -some 8200 miles away- my Grandpa, Arnold Christian Harrits (Arnie), was taking his final breaths.

I owe that view that morning, and much of my life, to him. In ways both subtle and direct he influenced me to become the man that I am - a globetrotting adventurer from hardworking and humble Danish-potato-planting stock. 

He gave me the gift of travel and encouragement to see the world. I remember slideshows of his and Grandma's travels - with the click-clicking of the carousel and the smell of dust burning off of the projector bulb and the feel of their worn green carpet on Charles Street scratching at my skin. I remember the stories told out of the side of his mouth - about the connection that was almost missed in Detroit and how they ran toward the jetway with tickets waving in the air and the rigamarole of flights to and from Australia and New Zealand. 

Mostly, though, I remember Denmark and family and connections. 

I'm grateful for the way in which my world was expanded well beyond the tried and true confines of Southeastern Wisconsin and made smaller as I encountered lines of relationship that link me to others across continents and oceans. At the time I took this all for granted; in retrospect I'm amazed at the audacity of a school bus driver and his christian educator wife who vowed to take their four grandchildren overseas not once but twice and what that action says about their values and beliefs.

Harrits men, I've been told, aren't known to be the most emotive people out there. More often than not, feelings and matters of ultimate concern are expressed not with our lips but with through the lives that we live. 

In my grandfather's life and through his three sons, I've come to learn the importance of duty and service to one's community, one's country, and the common good of our global neighbors. I've come to appreciate the importance of education and of faith - of taking an active interest in the world in which one lives and conducting oneself in accordance with one's deepest beliefs. I've come to embrace their ethic of honest, hard work and stewardship: We are entitled to nothing in this world and, ultimately, nothing is ours; what we do have is but for a short time and we should use it with consideration for those who come after us.

Mostly, however, I've come to know the importance of family and the bond of love (often unspoken) that crosses continents and knows no bounds. 

My grandfather was a man who, while in the Navy, wrote love letters across the Pacific Ocean to his beloved Shirley. My grandfather was a man who raised three sons, John and Jim and Jeff, to be entrepreneurs, engineers, and educators - men of honor and conviction, in their own right, and leaders in the communities they call home. My grandfather was a man who would bend over backwards to support his grandchildren Sarah, Robert, Tom and Me - logging hundreds of miles to see my plays in Minnesota and driving me through the night to Nebraska in order to catch up with a church youth group service trip.

With a somewhat slanted smile and wry sense of humor to the end, he lived an outsized life of curiosity and compassion, that the humble way in which he carried himself rarely betrayed. I am grateful for him and, in the life that I lead, hope to carry his legacy forward in whatever way that I can. 

Alle tak til Gud. All thanks be to God.