Over the previous year, he had aged drastically. Breathing was a struggle, moving was a struggle. Bodily functions were beginning to fail. He had become feeble.
He was dying.
A nurse came in to check his IV, she was tired, it was a long shift, the filter between her brain and mouth was beginning to break down. “Hmm” she said, “You have skinny arms!”
Something woke up within him, his jaw tightened, “Yeah?” he replied, “Well you have a fat ass!”
This seconds-long exchange was not this man’s finest moment. Truth is, he was an incredibly kind man. He was frustrated at what had become of him, the nurse was tired, no one was at their best, I get it. However, if she had known a little bit more about the life that this “old man with skinny arms” had lived, she probably would have kept those thoughts to herself.
Let’s go back to the early 1930s, Elgin IL, we’re inside an aging house on the Fox River in the middle of the night. Seven-year-old Darwin Kruse, the second oldest of four boys, had lost his mother, Hazel, only a year earlier. He was just shaken awake by Lester, the baby of the family, he had to go to the bathroom. Darwin walked his brother down to the basement and proceeded to sing at the top of his lungs as Lester sat down to do his business. The singing scared the rats and kept them from harassing Lester.
A few hours later, he was up and getting ready for school. With a mouthful of oatmeal, Darwin waved goodbye to Harry, his dad, as he left to work at the Elgin Watch Factory. Harry was a gold roller. It was said he could roll the gold so thin you could see through the sheets when you held them up. Darwin and his brothers finished their breakfasts and were scooted out the door by their grandma, a lady just as loving as Mama, but still…she wasn’t Mama.
Harry owned a car, but he walked to work. Everybody walked. Harry and Hazel used to go for drives out in the country with that car. After her death, that car was put up on blocks.
There was a deep sadness that pervaded the house, yet young Darwin was a humorous, charismatic boy-a natural leader who tended to decline the position of leader. Despite that, people seemed to follow him. He piggyback-carried Lester to school. On Fridays he would carry a bucket of beer back from the Elgin Eagle Brewery for Harry. Darwin carried things, he always carried. It’s hard to have skinny arms when you live a life like that.
A few years later, like most of his generation, Darwin found himself giving his family a hug and a promise before taking off to defend his country. He served in the Navy in Communications. Darwin witnessed for himself the angry fire of the Japanese Zero, and never had anything good to say about Mitsubishi for the rest of his life.
The Pacific Ocean claimed Darwin the boy. He returned Home a man.
That man became a firefighter after returning to Elgin. One afternoon, at the right time and in the right place, Darwin was hungry. At that time and in that place there was a waitress, a pretty, round-faced, curly-haired young lady named Patricia. She had just set down a plate of breakfast when the door opened and in walked a man, wearing a firefighter’s uniform shirt. He had a strong jawline, sharp eyebrows and there was a glint of humor in his eyes. She noticed his narrow waist, wide chest and his shirt sleeves were rolled up to the elbows. She noticed his thick, strong forearms. She couldn’t take her eyes off his forearms. For the rest of his life, she was unable to take her eyes off of those forearms.
They fell in Love. Patricia became “Patsy” and they were married. The Best Man was a fellow firefighter, Darwin’s best friend, he would later become the Mayor of Elgin, George Van De Voorde.

He and Patsy got ahold of an empty lot on the west side of Elgin and on weekends he employed his reliable forearms once again as the two of them built the house where they would raise their family.
They were blessed with four children, and from there, eleven grandchildren, and, to date, eleven great-grandchildren. Toward the end, that tiny house was pretty strained for room at family holidays, but no one seemed to mind.

Eventually, he moved on from firefighting and Darwin went to work for the Elgin Foundry, he also delivered institutional towels for Clean Towel Service, and Modern Dairy as a milkman. From there he worked at Eby Brown and finished his blue-collar career at School District U46, running media deliveries. He still carried things, he never stopped carrying things.
He didn’t have a lettered name, he didn’t get much of an education past high school. His jobs weren’t the kinds of jobs that made a man rich. They were modest middle-class jobs, but they were enough. They were enough to build a house, enough to raise four children and get them through college. They were enough for him and Patsy to enjoy a comfortable retirement.
Nothing mattered more to him than family. Let the doctors cure diseases, let the engineers create new gadgets, let the artists create their masterpieces. Darwin’s family was his masterpiece, there were few things that brought him more joy than family get-togethers.
His name was Darwin Kruse, but he was just Grandpa to me.
Though he chose not to pursue formal education past high school, he was incredibly intelligent, well-read and knowledgeable. He read voraciously. He never let his mind rest. Even as his body crumbled, his brain never failed. He had a sharp wit and could find a vein of humor in nearly everything. He laughed at funerals, not out of disrespect, but because he would recall a humorous story involving the deceased. Darwin believed that life is too short and too precious to not pursue joy every chance you can. It seemed to me that funerals for him were always more a celebration of a life than mourning a death.
I’d like to say I had a special relationship with him, but when I look at the big picture (the big picture being me and all the other grandchildren) then he had a special relationship with each of us. There was no blanket treatment from him. He recognized each of us as unique individuals and treated each of us as individuals.
In my case, we both shared a Love of books and reading, our quirky senses of humor matched perfectly. Toward the end of his life, I’d visit him with a collection of humorous bits of literature and I’d read to him. The sound of his wheezy high-pitched laugh made my day. I still think back to that laugh, and it still tears me up inside.
When I was little, he would be on the floor with me and my toys, playing. When I grew up, we’d be at the kitchen table together, chatting, sometimes about good things, sometimes not so good things. He helped me through more than one rough patch in my life.
In this day and age, “listening” is nearly a lost art. These days as I busily stumble through life with my wife and my own two daughters (the youngest one is named after him), I keep thinking back to Grandpa. He never allowed himself to be too busy for us, he never allowed himself to be so involved with a project that he couldn’t talk while doing it.
Think about that for a minute. Generosity can happen in the form of money, or food, but no one ever thinks about time. You can always earn more money, you can buy or grow more food, but time is finite, arguably nothing is more finite than time. Time was something Grandpa was incredibly generous with–something truly priceless. He never failed to dedicate a portion of his limited time on this earth exclusively to…me. Me! I think back to that and it blows my mind. What generosity! What a lofty aspiration for me. Nearly every day I ask myself, “What would Grandpa do?”

Let’s go to May of 2006, ten years ago last week. Patsy felt Darwin’s grip of her hand loosen. His loud and raucous family was silenced as news of his death hit us. After fifty-six years of marriage, for the first time in over five decades, Patsy found herself alone, she was a widow.

“You have skinny arms”
“You have a fat ass.”…
To that nurse…on behalf of my family, I am truly sorry he said that to you. But please know, those “skinny arms” carried his father and brothers through the tragedy of a mother’s untimely death. Those “skinny arms” held firm under the fire of Japanese warplanes. Those “skinny arms” built the house that would become a Loving Home. Those “skinny arms” carried folks out of their burning houses. Those “skinny arms” carried crates of milk through snowdrifts and across icy sidewalks. Those “skinny arms” were able to carry three generations of his family through good and bad and ultimately taught them all how to Love. It has been ten years, and the pain of his death has yet to diminish.
Grandpa carried. He carried us until his final breath. He still carries us.