Up & Never Away: Celebrating Paul McGrade — Rumson-Fair Haven Retrospect

“The party is this way.” Up, the twisty, hand-drawn arrow pointed.

There were white balloons dancing on strings. Up. They, too, led the way. Up was the way. Of course it was. It had to be. It was the right way. The only way. Up. From up at the top of the stairs, a hum of laughter, exuberant chatter and a toasty vibe descended just enough. Just enough for its call to be heard. The call to everyone coming to celebrate a life they were a part of in some familial way, reaching out with a reuniting hug and a smile. Arms extended … out and, yes, up.

Hundreds filed in. Without a somber stall or stammer, they went up, following the love most knew since childhood or at least younger years. They knew just where to go. Up. Yes, it was the only way to go. They knew the voices. They felt the settling comfort in the feisty familiarity. It was all up, like the sign said. Up.

Everything about Paul Mc Grade was just like all of it — up. Nothing down about it, not even in the corners of sad mourners’ mouths. Eyes smiled. They saw one another, connected, a glint of Paul in the creases around their eyes, the turned up corners of their mouths. Everyone saw him. Everyone celebrated him. He was a part of them in some way, after all. He was the everyman of childhood kinship, husbandry, fatherhood, teaching, coaching, and just that guy to whom a stranger would gravitate for an uplifting “Hello.”

And he was there. He was at the send-off party he wanted. He wouldn’t have had it any other way. He was far too much of a presence. That never dissipates. Not in the least. It’s energy that can’t be squelched. Can’t be beaten down with a stick. Impossible. He was with them all, every one of them. Up was the right direction. It’s heaven. His heaven. Their heaven. Up.

That’s how he wanted it. That’s how it was last Sunday at Tim McLoone’s Pier House in Long Branch. The popular Rumson-raised husband, dad, teacher, coach and friend to many said it himself in his obituary: “We will all meet again someday … Now get out there and live!”

So they did. In his honor. At the top of the stairway … there it was. The volume. The booming presence. The whole picture. A life that took all up with it … soaring to the heavens. Limitless lust for it all. There it was. There he was. Present. Holding them up with the undying memory of him. A packed room full of family, friends, Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School grads and extensions of all sorts spent hours living it up as he wished. They got out there. They lived.

The “meeting again someday” part? Well, he never really went away. It was obvious. And he never will.

Mostly, he made it clear to the wife and children whose physical presence he had to leave behind, those he adored most, for whom he said he owed the magnificence, like glowing stars, of his life. He told them they would meet again. They knew. Yet he was back already — his spirit reminding with the light cast from their star-lit faces.

And there were the others … so many others who looked up …

“I didn’t really know him that well,” someone could be overheard saying. But, oh, they did. Didn’t we all?

Don’t we all have that friend, that sibling, that love of our life, that dad, that coach, that teacher. That someone, if even someone who just passes through our life for a moment, leaving with us a message. That someone we meet just once. That someone who leaves an indelible imprint randomly crossing our life’s path.

Is it really random? The colliding? That someone we meet again. That’s because it is in the stars. Stars sometimes collide. He was one of those stars. That someone always is.

Shakespeare said it best and Paul McGrade lived it: “When he shall die take him and cut him out into stars and he shall make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun.”

And as the night descended, all fell in love with it. Up they all looked … up to the starry sky’s backdrop. There he was. There he would always be.

Here’s how they looked up … to Paul … (CLICK on the photo below or right here for a slideshow glimpse into the night.)