I Remember

It like it was yesterday. My father, Stuart, died this morning some 36 years ago. I sat with him some in the morning while mom and the others had breakfast. I remember he reached out his hand. I didn't take it. I think I knew he was saying goodbye and I didn't know how to deal with that. I did read him some Scripture and I'm glad of that, but not taking that hand will be one of the lasting regrets of my life. The snow began to fall. He had wanted to see snow again, and he got to. When the others came up, I went to the livingroom and lost myself in the piano for a while. I was working on the two part inventions in D minor and in Bb major. Joe came to call me in if I wanted to say goodbye. And so he passed, surrounded by his wife and all his children. The breathing just finally stopped and he was gone. 

I think of the loss of time with him over the intervening years, but above all the very great sadness that my children never got to know their grandfather, or he them. Cindi and I had begun to date the previous winter, though we'd been friends since the seventh grade. She sang "Amazing Grace" at his graveside funeral in Richardsville. He'd have like that a lot. He enjoyed hearing her sing. And then we all went back to Uncle Edgar's home for the wake. 

Daddy, you are still remembered and loved, and one day may God grant me to take that hand in my own.