My name is Brian Ames and I am Art Butherus’s grandson. Thank you for being here today to honor this great man. It’s my privilege to be with you this morning to share a few thoughts about my Grandfather.
I recall a circumstance when I was maybe eight or nine years old. Grandpa, Curt, my dad and I were somewhere in eastern Washington shooting clay pigeons. We would pair off, someone would launch a clay pigeon, and we’d try to be the first of the pair to shoot it. Grandpa and I were paired, someone launched the bird, and I lifted my shotgun and blew it to bits... finding myself quickly on my behind from the shotgun’s kick. I looked over at Grandpa standing there grinning. “I didn’t even get a chance to lift my shotgun,” he said. Of course, beating my Grandfather to that clay pigeon was the purest kind of luck there is, but even from my backside, at that moment he made me feel like the world’s greatest skeet shooter. It was a particular blessing of the sort he showed me all my life, always proud of me, always telling me he was proud.
Of course, I have many other wonderful memories of
my Grandfather. Christmas Eves in the family room at he and Grandma’s house in
Normandy Park. The smell of sawdust in his wood shop out back in the garage.
Building Mom and Kent’s house in Maple Valley. I remember Grandpa at my
wedding, having just returned from Alaska… the first time I ever saw him with a
beard. He was so kind and friendly to Natalie, my new wife.
And
I can close my eyes and see him bouncing my infant daughter Rebecca on his knee,
both of them giggling. I remember the first time he held my son Douglas. I
recall the pride in his eyes, again, one Saturday five years ago when I came by
to deliver a copy of my first book, which I had dedicated to him. In fact, he
really is the one responsible for the writing I began to do a few years back,
encouraging me to put down the story and sell it to a magazine of a wonderful
prank he and I played on unsuspecting camp-mates while up in elk camp.
When I reflect on what is common to these experiences, to all my interactions with my Grandfather, I think it must be the values he lived by throughout his life. We call this his legacy. I can see my grandfather in my daughter and son, the values he passed down through my mother and father and step-father. My father and I were speaking the other day, reminiscing about Grandpa, and he mentioned what a great influence my grandfather had on him as a young man. These are values that my parents passed to me – this legacy – which I am passing to my grandfather’s great grandchildren. Intense loyalty to family. Integrity in all his dealings. A brilliant sense of humor. The work ethic of an Old World craftsman. And the love of a fair hunt. When we come to funerals, we call it “paying our respects.” My grandfather was a man who truly was respected and in that sense the use of those words to describe what we are doing today is wholly appropriate.
When I learned that my grandfather had died, I was in a place he would have
loved. Cresting the top of an Ozark foothill in central Missouri, rifle slung
around my shoulder, looking for white-tail deer. He would have loved to have
been with me. As I topped the hill and got in range of a cell tower, my phone
buzzed, and I listened to Natalie’s message to call her. I knew why she had
called; my call back confirmed it. After I hung up, I surveyed the woods for a
while, watched orange and red leaves fall and swirl in the breeze, then looked up into
the bright blue sky. I laid my rifle down across a log, sat down, and grieved
for about five minutes. Then I began to compose in my head what I would say
here today.
I thought of my grandfather’s many fine qualities, those values he passed to my parents, to me, to my children, that legacy. Before long I was smiling, alone with his spirit in the forest, thinking of all the wonderful times I was privileged to enjoy with him. Rather than mourn too long, I thought instead about what we can and should celebrate about the life of Art Butherus. I thought about him at that moment, with a glorified body, free from the physical infirmities he suffered late in life. I thought of God wiping every tear from my grandfather’s eyes in a place where there are no longer any tears, no sadness. I thought of him hunting again with Curt, in the everlasting hunt we men all long to join when we are finished with this earthly life. Then I knelt and prayed a prayer of thanksgiving.
I
rose from my prayer and was no longer sad. In my heart there was only joy.
The same joy with which I departed every encounter – my whole life – with Art
Butherus. Imagining a world without him is still impossible; I look
forward with great eagerness to a Heaven with him.
My fondest hope is that all of you here today who have come to pay him respects will leave with happiness, with a fond storehouse of recollections of your time with Art Butherus, and with deep love for one another. The same kind of love my grandfather showed me.
Thank you, Grandpa.