Last week I got an e-mail from a friend that read:
I’m sitting in the hospital in upstate NY with my 98-year-old grandmother waiting for Hospice to come. Did you get the 1st grade class doing their song?  If yes, would you mind sending it?  Louie Armstrong is a favorite of my grandmother’s…
Of course, I replied, and I immediately sent the link that showed both our sons signing (yes signing, not singing) “What a Wonderful World.” I was happy to help in a small way. And then I cried.

My friend was about to lose her grandmother. Even at 98 years old, I know my friend was sad when her grandmother passed away a few days later. Four years ago, I lost my own grandfather one week before he would have turned 100 years old. He lived a long, happy and healthy life for 99 1/2 years. If there was ever a life to celebrate, it was his. Yet, I was still sad when he died.

I have many reasons in my life to be thankful and to have a positive outlook, but I often thank my grandfather for this trait. My grandfather was in his 40s when my mother was born, and near 70 when I was born, so I only knew him later in his life - yet he taught me many lessons.

When my grandmother became sick and my grandfather had to stay at home to tend to her, he took up baking as an at-home hobby. He was horrible in the beginning - and all of his children and grandchildren suffered through many a bad loaf of bread or coffeecake. A chemist in his early life, he was often mixing “odd” ingredients into his loaves: pineapple juice and flaked mashed potatoes, to name a few.

Yet something happened the more he stuck with it; he got good. It took him years to perfect his breadmaking. My mother put miles on her car driving him to various bakeries to purchase new items, to have his mixer cleaned or to test out a new ingredient. I witnessed it all.

If you knew my grandfather, you knew he was a baker. He made several loaves of bread daily, often taking them to morning mass to pass out to his fellow churchgoers. Never do I say the “Our Father” and not think of my grandfather: “give us this day, our daily bread.”

He was by no means perfect. But he made lemonade out of lemons - and dang good lemonade at that. A year after my grandmother passed away at age 81, my grandfather was diagnosed with throat cancer. We thought we’d lose him too. No chance. He underwent a full laryngectomy and retaught himself to talk. He then spent the next several years as a volunteer for the American Cancer Society, visiting schools all over southern California to talk to children about smoking. Like I said: dang good lemonade.

This is the example I witnessed during the later years of his life; from him I learned the lesson of making the best of what you are given. He often told his grandchildren to “make the world a better place.” I strive to live out both of these examples. And with his death, I learned how sad it is to lose a loved one, no matter how old they are. It is a sadness I know my friend is experiencing now, and I am saddened for her. Yet I am thankful for the insight to understand and to share with her - and our children - the lessons we have learned from our grandparents.

What a Wonderful World indeed.