Perceptions are a funny thing.

Perceptions are a funny thing.

This struck me first today as I entered First Baptist Church in Hillsborough. The occasion was a memorial service for one Clarence L. Newman, my father’s father.

It struck me because the last time I had stepped in that church, I couldn’t have been more than 12 years old and it seemed like such a big church at the time. With its high ceilings, adequate balcony, and the throne where the pastor sat in front of a nice sized Choir Loft seated under a Baptismal Pool.

When today, it seemed so small. Smaller than the sanctuary at Asbury United Methodist where I regularly attend. Maybe even half the size. But then, I was probably half the size.

It struck me again as I noticed all the people that attended the ceremony. Friends from my current congregation, family I had not seen in years and members of First who had been touched by the life of my Grandpa.

I was never close to my Grandpa. He was a curmudgeonly sort. Not unlike me today. I always remember him being old, even though I have seen pictures of him with me that show that he clearly wasn’t always as old as I remembered. He didn’t get past the sixth grade and had a severe hearing deficiency which required him to use powerful hearing aids that changed in sizes throughout the years. He was a loud man, prone to complain about things that he didn’t understand and I remember him being a bit of a bigot.

After he retired; he became fairly active in his church and made a name for himself passing little cartoons to people here and there. You would see them at the cash register when you went to K&W and other places he frequented. He gave them freely but always wanted to make sure that you got one that you wanted, one you would hold on to.

Knowing that he and his wife were miserly with their money, I always figured that was because he didn’t want his money to go to waste. But listening to the folks of the church, my father, my uncle and the pastor of the Church speak about him today, I learned about a side of him I had missed through my childhood shyness and the way I was timid around the man who even wanted my female cousin to grow up tough.

I learned that he wanted to make sure that you got the piece of him that meant something to you. Because, every one of the drawings meant something to him. He spent so much of his time drawing them, photocopying them and coloring them and it became apparent listening to the stories that these drawings had touched these people in a way that they had never touched me.

Now that the world is smaller place, I wish I had spent a little more time getting to know the man that so many talked about today.