Mike Pride’s grandchildren loved swimming across the pond, to Bernie Cutter’s place, and learning about birds.

He’d tell them about the yellow-bellied sapsucker, always a family favorite, at their summer camp in Goshen, but nothing could compare to the majestic wingspans of the loons and the herons. Pride took a greater interest in those birds than in others.

“It always felt like a vacation to us,” said Grace Pride, the oldest of Mike’s six grandchildren, who turned 22 on Saturday, the day he was laid to rest. “When a bird flew onto a branch, he’d take us to the screen and tell us all about it.”

Stories about Pride’s patience, leadership, judgment and skill as a writer have been everywhere nationally in recent weeks. He died in April at age 76, after rising from the canvas more than once to stand toe-to-toe with a blood disorder that packed a punch of its own.

A memorial service was held for Pride on Saturday at St. Paul’s Church in Concord. A pair of llamas attended, at Mike’s request, for no other reason than he thought it would be funny.

“He does not want weeping,” said Grace’s father, Dr. Yuri Pride, 47, one of Mike’s three sons. “He wanted it to be light.”

As editor of the Monitor for about 25 years, Pride lifted the paper to national prominence, with a keen eye for recruiting talent and a quest to make the paper a giant in all areas, including sports and photojournalism.

Meanwhile, on the home front, Pride, along with his wife of 53 years, Monique, raised three sons and spoiled six grandchildren. Grace had a unique view of her ‘Grampa,’ compared to the other grandchildren. She was first.

“I feel like I got more time with him because he was younger and healthier when I was growing up,” said Grace, a recent graduate of UMass Amherst.

“So in that respect, I’m lucky that I had that.”

Mike’s relationships with his three sons proved to be more challenging.

For example, his middle child, Dr. Yuri Pride, a cardiologist living in Atlanta, graduated from Concord High School and worked in the sports department of his father’s newspaper.

But he flunked out of the University of New Hampshire in his first year there. He sold vacuum cleaners door to door and worked the second shift at Precision Finishing, where his job was to put paper on a machine and take it off.

Depression and teenage angst is how Dr. Pride described his thoughts at the time, basically through all of his teen years.

He doubted his own work ethic and motivation, bottling his negative thoughts away from everyone, including his father.

His last name, well-known but somewhat uncommon, made it more difficult to remain anonymous. Mike was the editor who carried the Monitor through the Challenger disaster and led the interviewing process when presidential candidates stopped by the newsroom. That created pressure, but never from Mike.

“He saw a lot of potential, and it was daunting when I couldn’t get out of my own head,” Dr. Pride said. “I was letting it slip away. I thought I wasn’t worth much and had those kinds of feelings, and for him, he did not know what to do.”

Luckily, Precision motivated Dr. Pride to seek a different line of work. As for Mike, his son said his father gave him breathing room, a laissez faire policy, if you will.

“He just said he’d support me,” Dr. Pride said. “But he didn’t want to be overbearing. He was such a steady influence. Very stable. He would listen very well and he was a force in my life.”

Monique navigated the pain and recalled a wealth of memories. Three years after Woodstock, while both were in their 20s, Mike revamped a VW van for a trip across the country.

“We were camping all over America,” Monique said.

They saw the Grand Canyon, Mount Rushmore and the book depository in Dallas, where Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shots that killed JFK.

Later, Monique entertained the thought of returning to college. Go, Mike said. She earned her teaching credentials and taught school for 18 years.

She wanted to audition for the part of Joan of Arc’s mother at a theater in Tallahassee, Fla. “I told him that meant he would have to stay home and care for the kids alone,” Monique said. “They were 6 and 1. He said fine.”

She has plans to see a grandkid graduate from high school and another perform in a ballet. She’s going to Belgium, her homeland, this summer. Her aunt turns 101 years old in August.

“It’s a way to look forward to something,” Monique said. “Right now it feels unrealistic, and to me, he is still with me.”

His nightly readings of classics like “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and “Treasure Island” remain with Misha Pride, the youngest of the three boys at 42. He’s an attorney in Portland, Maine.

“People that approached me that read the story or saw it online were amazed at the life he led,” Misha said. “But if you Google journalism and my dad, you won’t find that he coached me in Little League for six years.”

Grace and her brother, 19-year-old Jackson, saw Mike a few days before he died. She said he was lucid and told them a final message: Don’t hold grudges against those you love and always have a sense of humor.

“I’ll remember it,” Grace said.

She’ll remember those loons and herons as well.

“Most of the time we spent at the camp,” Grace said. “You could see how happy it made him to show us everything he could. I think of things to ask him each day.”

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