Who tells your story?

I’ve only visited my dad’s grave a handful of times. I don’t like cemeteries or the feelings they conjure up. But this fall I find myself driving by the one he is buried in on the other side of town once a week to take my middle daughter to piano lessons.

A few weeks ago she asked why we never stop by like my mom sometimes does. So on Tuesday I decided we should pick up some autumn flowers and refresh the bouquet in the urn on his grave since this weekend marks fifteen years since we lost him. As we cleared a small stash of dry, crunchy leaves off his marker she read the words out loud and said with surprise, “His first name was Charles? I didn’t know that.”

“Yes, honey. That’s why your cousin is named Charles (Charlie). Dad always went by David, but that was his middle name.”

How can she not know this? Sometimes I forget that when the girls hear us talk of him they aren’t recalling memories of vacations, basketball games in the driveway, weddings, or visits to his office. They didn’t experience his life or his death. He’s an imaginary person to them. A historical figure in the minds of his grandkids.

There is a hauntingly beautiful song at the end of the Hamilton musical with these lyrics:

And when you’re gone, who remembers your name?
Who keeps your flame?
Who tells your story?

As my kids get older and ask more probing questions, I realize it’s a responsibility to tell the story of my dad in ways that “keep his flame” and shape their understanding of him. The stories may seem repetitive, and it’s hard to do a person justice with words alone. But as much as I wish they could experience him as a person in the flesh, the stories and the mementos are all I have to offer them. They are the only thing connecting the past to the present.

Ever so often one of them will ask, “Do you think Granddaddy {the name we’ve assigned him for their sake} would like being a grandfather?”

Yes. Yes, I do. And how do I know this? Because he loved being a dad.

This summer my mom found a letter I wrote him circa 1984.

I’m glad she found this so my own girls can see it and know a bit of what he was like as a dad. And he was a whole lot like their own Daddy. We just didn’t get to keep him around long enough for him to read books and dole out snacks to another generation of kids who like to delay their bedtime.

October is a month of family birthdays: my nephew, father-in-law, brother, sister-in-law, youngest daughter, and husband all claim a date. That’s a lot of celebration to squeeze into one month of the year. But October is also a month of remembering. So we look at old pictures, pull out the relics, and celebrate with nostalgia for what was and what could have been.

And then we remind ourselves that we see only in part while the Lord sees in full. Great is His faithfulness.

What was true in 1984 is still true today, Dad: “When I say I love you, I mean it.”

The End.