Your boys got you: Rest in Peace Grandpa Walter

I once said that I was Walter Burchette the first, my father was Walter Burchette Jr., and my grandfather was Walter Burchette III when he and I had a discussion when I was about five years old.  Of course, I had it backward, but it didn’t matter.  It was one of those stories that he and my grandmother loved telling friends and family.  The father of eight, grandfather of six boys and 1 girl, and great-grandfather of six, Grandpa Walter loved his family.  We loved him.  Tough as nails and let no one know his pain.  He taught me how to be a man.  When arguing and fussing with my cousins or brothers, he once asked me, “Do you want to fight?”  Like an idiot, I’d say yes.  He would then say emphatically, “Then join the Army.”

I once went to prime tobacco with my grandfather one summer to earn some money when I was about twelve.  He told me it was hard work, and I had to be ready for everything in the tobacco field.  Water, mud, the scorching sun, tobacco worms, and the things I hated the most, snakes.  The first morning I went out there with him, my brother Marques, and dozens of others, I worked my rear off for about six hours.  From head to toe, the job drenched me in water before 7 AM.  I worked those six hours helping everyone do something I did not know what I was doing.  I guess around noon that day, Grandpa Walter asked me did I want to go back to the house.  My answer: YES, I’m going to college.  I went back to school that next year and figured out how to get good grades so I could make a little something for myself because I learned a valuable lesson.  The farm life was not for me.

When his wife, my grandmother, passed away in 2006, I had just started dating my wife.  Sadly, Grandma Cluck never had time to meet my wife, but Grandpa Walter would always call her a sweet girl.  In our wedding photos, my wife noticed Grandpa still wearing his wedding band.  That’s what she wanted when she married a man with the same name as my grandfather.  A man dedicated to her so much, he’d wear a ring after her death.  She named her son after him.  Now it’s up to us to ensure we carry our family legacy forward and grow with each generation.  When me, Monte, and Jermaine, and sometimes Donte when he came down from Richmond, ran amok at his house, you could see the smile on his face because we were that next generation to grow under his watch.  Even after burying 3 sons, he had much to live for.  The rock of our family.

Too many times, I’ve spoken of time.  Time is our enemy because it never loses.  We are all susceptible to it.  The sun rises every day and will set, albeit, at different times, for each one of us one day.  The will be no need to cry because when the sun is down, we are free.  Surrendering to the darkness and moonlight of the other side of existence.  No matter how much we fight, we fall and make it all up to stand on the top of the tallest mountain.  Darkness will fall on us.

So why use any time to fight.  We can’t be short-sighted by simple arguments and disagreements.  We are here for a short time.  So instead of joining the army, we should build an army.  A group of people that looks like each other with shared experiences that’s willing to fight our common enemy: TIME.  Passing a family legacy forward, together.   Without it, we fail.  So I ask, don’t cry for me or my family.  Time sheds no tears.  It never surrenders.  It’s our job as a family to move forward together.

So, as I say goodbye to Walter Burchette Sr, I hope I made you proud.  Go be with your wife, your sons, and your grandsons.  I’m sure Grandma Cluck is tired of breaking up arguments between Steve, Jeffrey, and my dad over the last biscuit.  Whatever it is, you were a good man: Your legacy will continue.