Keeping Someone's Memory Alive After They're Gone

My grandpa died in December 2020. It was sudden, even though he had been sick for a long time.

He never looked sick. He never acted sick. He would come home from chemotherapy sessions to head straight down to the basement and drywall the ceiling. He never lost his hair, he never stopped playing hockey.

In short, he never stopped living.

After he died, I came across some old notebooks of his. Some of the entries were from just days before he passed. And sandwiched between notes about drywall finishing techniques and shopping lists for bird seed, was a quote written in all caps and circled in red pencil crayon:

“MY PLAN IS TO DIE YOUNG AS LATE AS POSSIBLE”

I think that line was the closest thing he ever wrote to an explanation of himself. And it resonates with me, deeply. So I found myself trying to understand him better through the way he lived, and to keep parts of that going in my own life.

Maybe you'd like to do the same.

Chances are, the person you've lost had something in their life that lit them up. Maybe it was reading, maybe it was hosting family gatherings, maybe it was traveling. It doesn't have to be something big or symbolic, just something you remember them enjoying that you think you might enjoy, too.

For my grandpa, that was woodworking.

I had always been interested in woodworking, but short of the two classes I took in high school, I didn't really have any experience. So when my family was left wondering what to do with his lifetime of tools, I told them I wanted to have them. That’s what got me started.

It’s not about doing it as well as they did, or even for the same reasons. It’s just a way of spending time connecting with something that mattered to them. And if you're anything like me, the association to them will make it feel like more of a connection than just a hobby.

The activity itself is only part of it; the bigger piece is the mindset that comes with it.

Think about how that person approached problems, work, or even everyday tasks. Usually, you can spot some kind of pattern. Were they patient? Stubborn? Kind? Try to identify that approach and find ways to borrow it in your own life.

My grandpa used to say, “Well, someone knows how to do it. Why can’t that someone be me?"

That's the mindset that actually led me to learn how to use those tools instead of letting them sit. It’s what pushed me to build out a garage woodshop, to spend an afternoon in a hot attic blowing in extra insulation, and to tear apart a bathroom when I realized the shower was leaking through the walls.

It's not because it's easier, and definitely not because I enjoy every single second of it, but that was never the point. The point, for me, was to foster that curiosity and become the kind of person who learns how to figure things out instead of avoiding them. And in some ways, adopting that mentality has made me feel closer to him than I ever did before.

At some point, you’ll stop doing things exactly the way they did them. You’ll figure out faster methods, different preferences, or decide certain parts of their process don't matter as much as you thought they did.

Maybe that can feel like drifting farther away from them, but I think it's an important part of the process.

It's why I named my Youtube channel "My Grandfather's Axe". It's about using his mindset and passion and knowledge but adding my own unique twist to it. I buy tools he would never have considered spending a dime on and sometimes I use methods he would have considered a waste of time (but I mean, come on, does everything has to be brad nailed?)

But his mindset is always in the background. That idea of figuring it out for myself, in my own way, instead of waiting for someone else to do it for you.

That's balance. You're not erasing them, but you're not a carbon copy of them either. You take what they instilled in you, and mix it with your own unique perspective.

And before you know it, you're building a legacy of your own on the back of their memory.

If you want to see a little more about my journey following in my grampa's footsteps, check out the video at the top of this article.