My Grandpa Ridd

"He asked me not to talk about him, but to talk about living a Christlike life. I know he's going to talk to me about this when I see him again, but talking about Gordon is talking about living a Christlike life." -Scott Davis, at Grandpa Ridd's funeral service, 29 December, 2016

Currently, I'm grateful for one thing above all else: my son was able to know my grandfather.

Growing up I called him Little Grandpa. It's completely understandable; my grandparents on the Smith side are around six feet and taller. And my grandparents on the Ridd side are... Not as tall as that.

In reality, he was average in height, but in spite of being my "Little Grandpa," he most certainly was not "average" or "little" as a human being. In fact, he was anything but.

I want to share with you just a few memories and examples of what made my grandpa the most extraordinary example of love, service, and manliness I could have ever imagined for my son.

One of my earliest and fondest memories of Grandpa was a summer night on his back patio where he taught me how to burp. Some may not have expected this from him, but he could belch better than anybody you've ever heard. He taught me how to create my own burp, and we stood on that back porch and had ourselves a burping contest. I didn't stand a chance as I'm sure his could be heard for several blocks and the ones coming from my tiny body would be lucky to make it to the gazebo in the corner of the yard. Like I said: total manliness.

However, that burping trait, great as it was, isn't what made my grandpa a truly great man. But I think you'll agree the following stories illustrate just how incredible he was.

Grandpa Sang Bass

As a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, young Gordon Ridd was called to serve in Brazil. While there he was asked to be part of a missionary quartet, the Mormon Melodaires, allowing him to share his beautiful bass voice with the people of Brazil. Their purpose was to build awareness and relationships between the Church and the Brazilian people. He and his fellow musicians traveled the country, performing on national radio and television shows, and even recording an album (feel free to have that playing in the background as you continue reading; it's what I'm doing as I write).

Fast forward a few years and he was able to fulfill one of his dreams and become a member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. This incredible opportunity allowed him to perform all over the world and in the Choir's weekly Music and the Spoken Word broadcasts, among other things. It was a dream come true, and he loved being a part of the Choir.

He was a member of the Choir for 13 years, and in spite of its demanding schedule he managed to maintain a great family life, a career, and served faithfully in his church callings (volunteer positions where local church members are asked to donate their time and talents to fulfill certain responsibilities within the Church). After singing in the Choir for several years, Grandpa's Stake President asked him to be the High Priest Group Leader, a calling which would mean he needed to attend his own ward (congregation) at the designated time each week, also meaning he would be unable to continue with the Choir.

The Stake President, President Rowley, said it was difficult for him to extend this calling because he knew the implications, but he also knew the calling came from the Lord. Giving up a dream for a church calling couldn't have been easy, but he accepted that call and anyone I've talked to says they never heard him complain. His faith and trust in God and his willingness to sacrifice and serve is a powerful reminder to me to put God first. Always. No matter what I'm asked to give up in return.

And as a side note, a few years back he was asked to come back and help the Choir during a General Conference weekend when several Choir members were unable to perform, so I was able to see him broadcasted (I believe we were living in Washington at the time) and performing during the Church's General Conference. It was pretty cool to see that!

Grandpa the Gentleman

There are few people who have ever walked this earth who were more chivalrous, considerate, and thoughtful than Grandpa Ridd.

I consider myself reasonably well-mannered and have developed a "skill" of positioning myself to be able to open doors for people as we're approaching them. Do you know where I learned that? I'll bet you do!

Just prior to my freshman year at Brigham Young University, I went with my mom and grandpa to visit campus and get to know my way around a little. That was when my mom pointed out what my grandpa was doing, and it was really impressive! Anytime we were heading toward a door he would start to move his position in our little group so that he was slightly ahead of us and on the correct side so that he could be the one to open the door for us. After a while, it started to bother me that I could never beat him to a door, so I silently turned it into a (one-sided) competition and successfully opened one door that entire day. It was a small win, but a powerful learning experience on the art of being a gentleman. It has to stay on the forefront of your mind at all times until it becomes second-nature, and one day I hope to at least come close to being the gentleman my grandpa was.

In the past 21 months since he was diagnosed with cancer, there have been three small moments that have stood out to me that fully display Grandpa's thoughtfulness.

Shantel and I were expecting at the time Grandpa was diagnosed and one day, completely out of the blue, he called Shantel. She couldn't answer when he first called, so he left a message that just said he wanted to check in and see how she was doing, how the baby was doing, and if she was still working and how that was going. In my wife's words, "That is so cute. I'm having a kid and he is fighting cancer. Shouldn't it be the other way around?" But that's just who Grandpa Ridd was. Just like opening doors, you can't beat him to the phone call to see how he's doing; he called first to check in on the expectant mother before you could call him to see how he was doing. It was a small, touching moment for me and my wife.

The other two stories I want to share are a couple small things he did for Grandma. The first is another small and thoughtful act, simply buying a new refrigerator. He wanted to make it easier on her so she didn't have to get down to the bottom shelves and drawers of the old fridge, so he replaced it with a new one that had the freezer as a drawer on the bottom of the unit, making it easy for Grandma to be able to reach everything once he was gone. Again, small but touching.

I wish I remembered all the details of this final story, but I think even without the little bits and pieces I've forgotten it's still a pretty fun memory. If I remember correctly, it was around Christmas of 2015 and Grandpa and I were going to pick up my cousin Sarah. Or maybe we were banished from the house during a baby shower and happened to go get Sarah while we were out? That sounds right. Either way, we had a little time to kill so Grandpa asked if we could stop off at Home Depot. He wanted to look at a bench that Grandma had seen in an ad in the Sunday paper and mentioned she liked. We found the bench, he sat in the display model and even though it was clearly not designed for his skinny body (we joked he would fall through the slats if he wasn't careful) he decided he wanted to get it for Grandma.

We looked at the box and tried to decide if we could fit it in my car, a little Corolla. I told him we'd make it work one way or another, and we did! It wouldn't fit in the trunk, so we took out the car seat and put that in the trunk and laid the bench across the back seat of the car. Of course, this presented another problem when we went to pick up Sarah: I now only had two available seats but three people to transport back to Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Grandpa's solution? To sit in the back seat in front of this giant box and hold the seatbelt in front of him. I guess at this stage in life he wasn't as worried about seatbelt safety.

But that's not the point of the story. The point of the story is that grandma saw something she wanted, and he wanted to spoil her with it. This, as well as the previous story, lay out a pretty good blueprint for how to treat your wife. I'll do my best to remember that example, and I hope my son does, too.

Lincoln and Grandpa

My son, Lincoln, is the first great-grandchild on this side of the family, and the only great-grandchild that Grandpa Ridd knew in this life. I feel personally blessed by that fact because in Lincoln's first year and a half of life Grandpa Ridd already had an immense impact on Lincoln.

Lincoln loved Grandpa Ridd. Before he even learned to say "Mom" he learned to say "Grandpa" (or "Bampa") and it was Grandpa Ridd that he first called "Bampa." Anytime he saw a picture of Grandpa Ridd he would get so excited and exclaim, "Bampa! Bampa!" If we were heading to dinner at Grandma and Grandpa's house, all we needed to do was ask, "Do you want to go see Grandpa?" and he would become ecstatic.

Lincoln's first word was "book," and he loves reading with anyone, but he especially loved reading with Bampa. He would often grab someone to take him downstairs to the books, pick out the perfect story, and as soon as he was back upstairs he would take that book straight to Bampa to read it to him. So whether it was reading, playing blocks, or just knowing he was going to get to see Bampa that day, Lincoln loved everything about Grandpa Ridd.

While I'm sure he won't really remember the time he was able to spend with Grandpa, I hope he can remember these stories and learn from the example of a great man. I hope we all can. I'm grateful that we'll have pictures and videos of Lincoln and Grandpa together.

And I will be eternally grateful that my little boy was able to know my Little Grandpa.