The Greatest Waste

My dad told me something about my grandpa once. 

My grandpa was an orphan; he didn’t see a picture of his birth mother until his late 60s. My grandpa had an inimitable wit, a charming sense of humor, a wife he loved and devoted himself to tirelessly for over forty years, and eight children. What he did for a living I don’t think there is a name for anymore; he was a repairman, engineer, inventor, and tinkerer. What job title his employer, GE, had given him I don’t have any idea. He was a Jack-of-all-trades, just as handy with wood as he was content with a beer in his hand. He was loving, delightful, no pushover, a man through and through, and a devout Catholic. He looked like Frank Sinatra when he was young and a bit like John Wayne when he got older.

I got to know all kinds of things about my grandpa. It was impossible not to learn about the man if you were around him, because he was so genuinely himself at all times. I got to learn all about him because my dad liked to talk about him before grandpa’s death in November of 2011 and he still likes to talk about him just as much after. I got to know lots about my grandpa, even if he never got to know too much about me.

When I was too little to have chores Grandpa and I would watch Disney’s Robin Hood while the older kids did their chores. Grandpa would whistle and I would just sit against him with his arm around me. In the two years between when Grandpa was diagnosed with cancer to when his body succumbed to it, I didn’t see him as much. When I finally did make it over to his house after a particularly long absence, it was clear that someone had told him I was hesitant to see him because they believed I’d be disturbed by his appearance. That thought hadn’t even crossed my mind till he alluded to it, saying, “Well, Joseph, I hope your old grandpa hasn’t scarred you too bad.” The truth was his appearance–the loss of a perfectly round and hard-earned beer gut along with slightly gaunt cheeks–hadn’t bugged me in the slightest. The last time I visited Grandpa was only two days before his death, and this time he looked so much smaller and more physically broken it was shocking. But still not in the least bit disturbing.

I never bothered trying to correct him about why he hadn’t seen me in months. He was giving me the benefit of the doubt. He was doing what grandpa did–making it about someone else rather than all about him. The truth was I’d been lazy. Just lazy and selfish, thinking there were certainly other things Grandpa would rather do with the end of his life than have me come by and bother him. It was a silly thought. Silly, but more than anything selfish.

Here’s what my dad told me about my grandpa. Grandpa was an even-tempered man. My dad says he can’t recall a time he ever heard him yell. But he had seen him angry, outraged, even furious. Nothing made Grandpa livid except when he saw someone choosing to be selfish.

See Grandpa wouldn’t get angry at the person per se–though it is true that he was human–but he would always be angry for them. Grandpa would have never called himself wise, but the man understood better than anyone I’ve met the single most valuable piece of wisdom there is: selfishness is such a waste. It is the greatest waste of them all. It ruins a whole life. Everyone has seen it sour a good moment, disrupt an entire household, break families, or destroy friendships. Selfishness sucks, and Grandpa hated it. He saw it in himself, his wife, his kids, and the world he watched change throughout his lifetime.

There’s no doubt Grandpa knew selfishness well; everyone does, and he knew it the same way we do, by getting his fair share of practice with it. But he got to know it intimately in another way that I’ve laughably failed to do. He got to know it by fighting with it, beating it, and then fighting with it again, and again, and again. At the end of his life, it’s appropriate to say that Grandpa was naked. When I saw him in those last days, I saw a lot more than I’d ever wanted to of his body. But his soul was also so exposed. The nature of his heart was wide open for everyone to see. And it was beautiful. It was obvious to those he talked to at the end that the only reason he was still alive was because Grandma hadn’t let him go yet. Even when his body was beyond ready to shut down, Grandpa was still living, and for the same reason he had lived for so many years: for someone else. When there was nothing left of him, when he was weak and afraid of what was coming, Grandpa wasn’t changed. He did what he’d always done and gave selfishness the lazy eye as it approached and sent it on its way. He had no time for it. 

I got lucky. I paid attention to Grandpa when I was growing up because I was a curious kid. Now as I look back at his life and listen to what my dad says about him I can put the pieces together and learn from him as if he were still here. His example is perennial. Timeless. You could even say there’s something eternal about it. And the crux of it is simple.

Selfishness is a waste. No matter how we slice it or look at it, rationalize or justify it, it’s just a tragic waste. I’m not good enough with words to articulate how devastating it is to look back at even a single missed opportunity to love, witness, serve, protect, encourage, give–to “live for” someone else–when the only impediment to such an act was myself. I can look back and string together these types of moments to make a lifelong chain. I could very accurately define myself by selfishness alone, by every failure to “live for”; when I turned in on myself rather than reaching out of my comfort zone to do for another person. The gift of being able to do anything is mind-boggling. Too often we so completely underestimate the value and unprecedented nature of this power we have for doing, and in self-pity and laziness waste it on only doing for ourselves. This power needs its air; when it remains turned inward only it rots us out. Even when we strive to direct ourselves outward we get caught in its traps. Selfishness is insidious. It finds a dozen different ways to show up as our true motivation, even after we thought we’d found a way of serving other persons. It turns out we’re incredibly inventive at coming up with things other people need that we can provide. 

In short, it’s not an enemy we defeat once, twice, or even three times. By grace alone we step into battle with it every morning, in the middle of the night, and sometimes even in our dreams. It’s something to get angry over and something to hate for other people’s sake like Grandpa did. But it's a glorious battle of which my grandpa's life is a witness. Life counts the most in those moments when we're neck-deep in the fight, determined to conquer ourselves and respond with all our self to the challenge of selflessness: "Take up your cross and follow me."