Still 58

My Grandpa passed away on October 4, 1988.

My Opa passed away on December 9, 2011.

My Papa John passed away on September 24, 2016.

I realize how incredibly lucky I am to have had three grandfathers:  three honorable, courageous, enterprising, selfless, principled men.  My cousins and I have been able to watch these men and choose the very best parts of what they are, to nurture those same qualities in ourselves.

My grandmother had just celebrated her fifteenth anniversary with Papa John when he passed away.

I’ve talked before about my huge, insane, amazing family, which grew to 58 members strong last month as my new cousin Kyle married into the family.  Papa John was 44th to join the family, and he was as much a part of it as any of us.  As many of my cousins have expressed over the last few days, he bought into the craziness immediately and was a true member of our clan.

We take care of our own in this family, and recent evidence suggests that going to heaven simply presents new opportunities to do just that.

The way my uncle tells it, Papa John had to be newly arrived up there and just getting situated as, here on earth, my uncle sat down at a poker table.  That’s when Papa John must have met Grandpa.

Both avid card players themselves, it’s easy to imagine the two of them kicking back and getting acquainted as they watched my uncle play.  Suddenly realizing that he could take a more active role, Papa John likely couldn’t resist meddling.

My uncle attributes the four aces in his hand to Papa John’s handiwork.

He probably sat back and grinned, then leaned over and elbowed Grandpa in the ribs.  “I just took care of your boy down there,” he would have said.

And knowing Grandpa, he would have taken that as a challenge.  “Oh yeah?  Is that right?”

That’s why my uncle is pretty sure that the Royal Flush he got, on the very next hand, was Grandpa’s doing.

My cousin Tommy calculated the odds of the two rarest hands in poker coming up in a row like that.  He figures the chances are something like one in two billion.

It’s probably easy to believe that my uncle’s incredible stroke of luck is just coincidence, and that his crediting Grandpa and Papa John with the assist on these two amazing poker hands is nothing more than fanciful story telling.

Except…

The day after we laid Papa John to rest, my grandmother decided to raise her spirits by going to the casino.

She came home $2500 richer after a Royal Flush of her own.

Apparently, it doesn’t matter which side of the Pearly Gates we’re on–this family still watches out for its own.  We didn’t lose Papa John, just like we didn’t lose Grandpa–now they’re both up there taking care of us.  The family count stays at 58.