intersect A Tale of Three Grandfathers   INTERSECT (Where the Bible Meets Life) is a regular column of ONE Magazine featuring Dr. Garnett Reid, a member of the Bible faculty at Free Will Baptist Bible College. Email Garnett greid@fwbbc.edu

I FINALLY FOUND HIS UNMARKED GRAVE, not too far from Minnie Pearl’s. My search for the burial spot had taken me to several archives. Mom and I then paid 200 bucks to put up a simple headstone that reads, “Thomas H. Reid, 1886-1933.” My grandfather—my dad’s father—died broke in the middle of the Depression, 22 years before I was born. Thomas Reid was the grandfather I never knew.

The Gospel Mule

The grandfather I do remember well was also named Thomas. My mother’s father, he was “Pa-paw” to me. How I treasure my memories of those golden summers and snowy winters on his farm when I was very young: hunting together, he with his shotgun, me with my Lucas McCain “Rifleman” cap gun; riding on the tractor in his lap; wondering just why it was he always finished off dinner with a plate (a plate, mind you, not a bowl) of cereal.

Pa-paw was a Sunday School teacher and the caretaker of the church cemetery—the very graveyard where he, my mom, and my dad now await the resurrection. Got saved, he did, right after a mule fell on top of him. He said he took that as a sign from the good Lord that he needed to get right. I have no reason to think he was wrong about that.

I was robbed, though, of Grandpa Reid, which sounds funny since I never had the chance to call him that or any of the other monikers grandkids use for their father’s father. Who knows, he might have been “Pa” or “Granddaddy” or even “Pops,” as I am known these days. But “Grandpa” works as well as any, I suppose. Whiskey robbed me of my grandpa. He drank himself to death.

A Slave’s Eyes

So you’ll understand why I feel angry and cheated every time I read Proverbs 23:29-35. Here the wise man asks six questions, all of which have the same answer: the boozer. It’s the boozer who has woe, sorrow, strife, complaining, self-inflicted bruises, and red eyes (v. 29). He not only has red eyes because he “looks at” the wine, but deluded eyes (v. 33) and closed eyes (vv. 34-35) as well—eyes which open only to hunt for another drink (v. 35).

Evidently that’s what my grandpa was like, and my dad hated him because of it. That’s right, my father had nothing good to say about his father. No wonder my dad also hated liquor with a passion. And I’ve never gotten over his advice to me: “Son, you’ll never be a drunk if you don’t take the first drink.” Actually that’s sound biblical counsel.

In Proverbs 23 the wise man says, “In the end” its venom poisons its victim like a snakebite. “In the end”—that’s just it: there’s always the end, the outcome, the last chapter where the boy is robbed of his grandfather. That’s what happens when you “go to try” the stuff (v. 30). So I’m convinced my dad was right. As Paul says, you’ll not be enslaved by anything (1 Corinthians. 6:12), namely alcohol in this case, if you stay away from its company and never give it the time of day.

Ninety-Proof Suicide

Now I’m having the time of my life as “Pops,” granddad to two beautiful redheads; and though I never knew him, Grandpa Reid has taught me an unforgettable lesson on grandparenting. I’m just sorry the fee for the lesson was so high, for him and for me.

The truth is you don’t know how much it hurts me inside to tell you all of this. My heart breaks every time I just think about it. I grieve for him, for my dad, and his mother and sister for what they had to endure, and for the regrettable legacy Thomas Reid should never have chosen for himself.

As the country song says, “He put a bottle to his head and pulled the trigger.” Turns out it was loaded. The shot ricocheted and hit me, too.