Last updated on November 24, 2020
Just Northwest of Mio, Michigan on some state land east of Townline Road, there is a plastic chair. It is painted brown and has sat there for many years, overlooking a gently sloping hill covered in oak trees. It is the chair of Jim Volpi, my grandfather, who passed away in February 2020. This will be the first Michigan firearm deer season in many years when its owner (who, of course, has illegally left it there) will not be hunting.
I like to think, however, that he was there on the morning of November 15th, watching the sunrise, unfazed by the windstorms and cold. Beside him was his sister, whom he only recently met for the first time, and his mother. He told them of the deer he’d seen and why he loved the spot. Jesus stood behind them, and they worshipped Him for creating this hill, this sunrise, these trees, and all the memories Grandpa had sitting in the chair that, by some miracle, is still there. He then told them story after story after story; stories told in ways that only Jim Volpi could tell them. They laughed – Jesus included – because of all the goofy stuff he had done. Only, the story was being told from a glorified body free of pain, with no memory of sorrow or sin. There was only joy, peace, and comfort.
Mercifully, Grandpa never had to live through the worst of 2020’s insanity and he also did not die of COVID-19 (though we think he may have had it last November when he complained of shortness of breath and losing his senses of taste and smell…sound familiar?). His heart gave out, though only in a biological sense. As the hundreds of people who attended his funeral can attest, Jim Volpi’s heart – in the supernatural sense – is not dead at all. In innumerable acts of kindness and service to thousands of people, he shared the love of Jesus with those the world had forgotten or given up on. Indeed, he shared the Word of God with people like him (or, at least, with people like he once was). In in this way I think of him any time I hear Casting Crowns’ song, “Nobody.” Jim Volpi was a “Nobody, tryin to tell everybody, about Somebody, who saved his soul.”
To me and our family, of course. He was “somebody” and more. Many people referred to him as a “character” because there just wasn’t anyone like him. He had his own “brand” as it were: a simple-minded Italian-American who never met a stranger. He was loud, funny, stubborn, joyful, committed, and profoundly in love with Jesus.
His theology was superficial, at best. Like many American Christians, he relied more on the televangelists and others to guide him intellectually. But unlike many others who claim to follow Jesus, he lived the Gospel more than he understood it. He couldn’t always quote it chapter and verse, but the Bible lived through Him and in spite of his own limitations. He had a child-like faith and a simplicity (like his mother) that was the envy of those around him.
As I expected back in February, when it was very hard to say goodbye, it has been even harder this November. My best memories of grandpa are this time of year. I can still seem him falling over and over again in the woods because he couldn’t pick up his feet. He only wore “hunter orange” on his head, thought “buck bomb” spray was like a cologne, used a fraying rope for a “safety harness.” and really only went hunting to spend time with me, my brother, and my dad – especially at the run-down diners he always wanted to go to for breakfast; or at the Ponderosa Buffet he affectionately referred to as the “Ponder.”
We didn’t go to Mio this year and, as always, we didn’t get a deer. Dad and I did get to look over a hill, see a sunrise and sunset though. We did see deer, freeze our butts off, and wonder what we were doing in the woods when wind gusts topped 60mph. But we also thought of Grandpa, who we miss so, so much. But it is unbelievably comforting to know he is not hurting. He’s not sad, alone, sick, or hungry (though I’m sure he’s eating). My tears this time of year are not of sorrow, then, but of joy and of peace. I know without a shadow of a doubt that I will see him again. In fact, I’m way more confident of that than I am that I’ll ever get a deer.
Anyway, I just needed to say all that because it’s the most wonderful time of the year: hunting season.
Many of you out there have lost loved ones this year as well. COVID-19, delayed medical care, suicide, drug overdoses, cancer, hurricanes, wildfires, and a myriad of other things have cost us dearly. We all want it to be over or at least to understand why we’re going through this. I don’t have compelling answers to all of this, but I do know what Jim Volpi would want me to say:
Jesus loves you unconditionally. You need only choose to love Him back and accept, by faith, the forgiveness He freely offers.
In a world with so little hope, so little light, and so much pain and sorrow…the simple truth of the Gospel remains. It has survived every global catastrophe and will continue to do so. You’re not too fallen, too broken that Christ cannot restore you. It’s not too late. And I will tell you from my own experience, that when it seems like the entire world is ending, there is nothing more reassuring than knowing that there is something and someone who is eternal and unchanging. Because of the death and resurrection of Jesus, I know that Grandpa and I will be together again.
Jim Volpi would want you to know that. And so do I.
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