Grandpa Matson's Eulogy

A month ago we were gathered in this place to celebrate Grandpa Arnie’s 80th birthday. Today we gather in praise and thanksgiving for the fun, food, faith and family that Shirley identified as central to his life. His last day was filled with these four central ingredients at Audra and Jake’s wedding. When I married Aaron, Grandpa’s grandson, Grandpa must have clinked his silverware on his glass to get us to kiss somewhere close to 50 times. During my sister-in-law, Amber’s wedding to Tyler Grandpa received a set of plastic utensils to eat with to cut down on the clinking, but as you can imagine this didn’t stop Grandpa. To make sure Grandpa had something to clink at the reception this Saturday Tyler snuck in Jake’s SDSU cowbell for Grandpa.

Of course a clinking cowbell is just a clinking cowbell without his distinctive laugh. On a memory note card Nicole wrote, “When I think of my Grandpa Arnie I always think of his laugh. If you have every heard it, you know what I am talking about. His laugh comes from his toes, it comes from his soul, and you can’t fake that one. It is the sound of complete happiness.”

Grandpa found complete happiness when the love of his life, Lorraine, heard his laugh from across the room. She was determined to find out where that wonderful laugh came from. Arnie and Lorraine were married for 44 years and had 6 incredible children. Their children have written many memories about their parents for various wedding anniversaries and birthdays. On a memory card Steve wrote, “I remember Dad and Mom and the excitement surrounding their trip to Norway. I remember dad thinking Mom would leave her purse somewhere along the trip.” Lowell wrote, “I remember the love you showed to our mother, your wife. The tears we shed when she left this world. She was the force and you were her strength.” Also thinking about her parents, Loretta wrote, “Dad loved mom with all his heart and soul and I know he still misses her a lot even though it has been almost 15 years since she went to meet her maker. His example of loving a spouse is one I have also followed and love my husband with all my heart and soul.”

Teaching love by loving is something that naturally flowed out of grandpa. After loosing Lorraine he began doing the things she used to do out of love for the family. He made lefsa by the dozens for us even though he didn’t like it. Everything he did was a labor of love. Scott wrote, “There are lots of happy memories of dad helping me with all of my ‘honey-do’ projects. Dad is my right and left hand man.” He did the small things big. Every year he’d say we’ve got to cut back on the garden this year and inevitably he’d plant more than the year before because if one is good more is better.

And a big part of our family life is faith. One weekend when Grandpa was still farming Loren remembers enormous amounts of snow. Apparently the snow piles were almost as high as the tractor grandpa used to move them, but he moved mountains to get his family to church, because that’s just what you do.

Faith was more than attending worship – faith is a gift that God has richly blessed this family with. In April grandpa was in a tragic car accident that claimed the lives of his brother Donald, sister Ann and brother-in-law Charles. He struggled a great deal with these losses but he also found comfort in the promises of Christ. Today we trust deeply in those promises, the promises grandpa knew deeply, loved dearly and passed on to us.

In the freedom of the promises that we are God’s children we go on with the values grandpa embedded in us - food, fun, family and faith – as well as the desire to not throw anything out and the enjoyment of a thrilling game of Rook.

Also embedded in us are Grandpa Arnie’s love for children and his favorite sayings. How many times have you heard, “You know why you lost those teeth, you’ve been kissing to many boys.”

In closing I’d like to share a story from earlier this week. 4-year-old Luke was getting ready to leave Grandpa’s house. Luke ran up to Grandpa, jumped on his lap and gave Grandpa a big goodbye hug. Then, all of a sudden, Luke reached out grabbed Grandpa’s nose and said, “I got your nose” as Grandpa laughed his big Grandpa Arnie laugh.

Grandpa's obituary is available at Eidsness Funeral Home.