An ode to October

I confess that I never read Anne of Green Gables as a child. I was more into popular teen fiction than the classics back then. So it wasn’t until last year when I started reading the first book in the series to the girls at bedtime that I came to know and love the cast of characters who call Avonlea home. This fall we’re on the third book, Anne of the Island, and I’m amazed how an author from so many years ago can still captivate children and adults with the wit and wisdom of her endearing characters and storyline.

As a Southerner I don’t necessarily relate to the Canadian setting. But, I love the way Anne passionately enjoys the seasons and treats them as if they have personalities all their own. I feel like I would instantly have a kinship with L.M. Montgomery if for no other reason than because she penned this great line for her protagonist: “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”

Like Anne, I’m a big fan of this month and the way it looks and feels and smells. I like the crisp air, the turning leaves, the pumpkin displays, the football games, the harvest festivals, all of it.

But, twelve years ago this month my dad died suddenly on a beautiful October day. We buried him on an unusually cold but beautiful October morning. The association with those events tainted my love for October for awhile, as every year our family collectively dreaded the anniversary of his passing.

In late August my aunt, Dad’s sister, passed away suddenly with an aortic aneurysm of the same sort that took him. After her death my uncle went through a collection of family photos that made their way to my mom a few weeks ago. These are pictures none of us have seen before of his childhood and young adult years. The photo quality is poor, but we can make out enough of most of the pictures to piece together timelines and stories we remember him telling. Seeing them is like peeking into tiny slivers of a history we want to know and hold onto.

My grandfather was a pastor, but he worked hard to become one. He dropped out of high school to work the family farm during WWII and didn’t finish his education until he was married and had started a family. So, Dad and his siblings moved quite a bit during their childhood as they followed him to schools in Tennessee and Texas and to his first church jobs thereafter. Now that I have three young kids of my own, I can’t fathom doing what these two did to get through school and start a ministry career with a young family in tow.

There are pictures of the homes they lived in during various seasons. The picture below is the house where all three of their children were born {at home!} in Wildwood, Tennessee. My grandmother had written in her distinctive cursive on the back of the photo, “This is our little house. So you can kindly guess what it looks like. I got some hedge bushes…”:

Since there wasn’t a GED option in the mid 1900’s, the whole family of five left their cute home in Wildwood to move into the humble home below while my grandfather worked to earn his high school diploma. The back of the photo is labeled, “Chilhowee Baptist Academy Cottage,” though “cottage” seems like an extremely generous description for this structure. I can only imagine the creatures that lived underneath/with them here:

We don’t seem to have pictures of their homes during their college days in Jefferson City or their seminary days in Texas. We did find pictures, though, that remind us times were different back then because you could shamelessly leave a baby unattended in a bassinet in the middle of a field or allow your young kids to play in a construction zone:

There are pictures of the family dog, a collie named Goldie, that my mom remembers Dad talking about:

There are pictures where we see the men of the family standing in the exact same way my brother stands today:

Genetics are powerful because we see so many of his features even in the grandkids he never met:

Some of my favorites are the pictures of him showcasing his acute sense of fashion and wearing wardrobe statement pieces like the shoes he has on below, for instance. Hopefully he and my grandmother were just taking in the mountain views and not planning to hike in those ensembles:

Today in the digital age we can take a thousand pictures on our phone in a month’s time. But, a few decades ago photographs involved a lot more time and expense. Discovering this small collection of snippet’s of Dad’s past is like finding buried treasure. It helps us know him and remember him in new ways.

These old pictures also give us some new material to compare to our people in real time. Just this week my brother celebrated the birth of his firstborn child, a 7.5 pound baby boy.

This baby bears Dad’s name, Charles David, and will likely bear some of his traits. I can’t say for sure, but I’m betting he might one day stand with the same distinct posture and stance of his dad, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather. Who knows? He might even have a thing for fancy shoes.

What I know for sure is this baby breathes new life into October. He was due in late September. But, God, in his providence, saw fit to save his debut for a beautiful day in October. From death to new life, God is faithful to restore and redeem.

This week I’m thankful for old pictures, for new pictures of a baby born in Louisiana, and as Anne Shirley said many years ago, “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”