I think we stay young by centering our thoughts on things that are pure, lovely, and of good report. By putting our arms out car windows more often. By burning expensive candles before they melt in storage. By getting so excited about the love of Jesus that our teeth can barely keep up with our mouth.
So tomorrow morning I think I’ll pull out those sneakers and the dumbbells and the alfalfa sprouts.
You’ll be happy to know that, unlike Satyabhama, we’ve decided against having more children anytime soon. At least until we find a nursing home with a kindergarten attached.
God gave us memories that
we might have roses in December.
SIR JAMES M. BARRIE
Our children have reached the age where they are moving out one by one, sometimes closing the door, and often returning to raid the fridge. It couldn’t happen fast enough for me. The latest to go is our daughter, Rachael, who stole my heart eighteen years ago. She is graduating from a Christian high school with plans to move on, to study in England, then travel the world. She has been threatening to leave since third grade, and it couldn’t come fast enough for me.
She has been eating our food, driving our car, and keeping us up late most nights. Years ago she left her initials on our dryer and carved OINK! into the arm of my old rocking chair. I noticed it while I was snacking late one night.
Rachael has bleached her bedroom carpet with nail polish remover. And painted her walls a shade of pink that causes me to cringe.
I promised her once that the moment she graduated, her furniture would be out on the front lawn. The door would be locked, the keys changed. We’ll have sold the place and moved to Nunavut, where the real estate is cheap.
She laughed. “Oh Dad,” she said. It’s a phrase she’s used a lot through the years.
During the graduation ceremony, Rachael took center stage to deliver the valedictory address. It was the first time in world history a Callaway had experienced such an honor. I ain’t sure why. I thunk the rest of us would have did goodly.
“Our class is going to do amazing things,” she began, throwing half a smile my way. “We are going to be rich. Famous. We are going to turn this world upside down with our impeccable charm and our fashion sense. Yes, we are going to be sports stars, movie stars, and pop stars. We are going to be scholars and musicians and politicians.”
Thankfully she wasn’t finished.
“When I was a little girl,” she continued, “these are the things I thought characterized graduates. Maybe it was all those Disney movies we watched. Happily ever after. Wish upon a star. Dream, dream, dream. But I’m starting to find out those dreams were too small.
“Our motto is ‘To the Ends of the Earth.’ Maybe we chose it because our little town seems like the end of the world. Or maybe it’s because our dream is to stand out from the crowd. To serve Jesus wherever we are. I’ve been reading of missionaries who packed their belongings in a coffin when they left home, fully expecting never to return. Some of us may go to Africa or China and never come back. Others will end up in Moose Jaw, or Seattle, or Cuba. It’s my prayer that we’ll serve Him wherever we are.”
I was sitting near the front, hoping she wouldn’t look my way and see my misty eyes. Was this the little girl I carried and cuddled and loved? All grown up and a preacher too? How could a troubled kid like me grow up to deserve the joy of seeing his daughter follow Jesus? And where did the years go? She’s barely out of her high chair. Last week she was showing us her finger paintings. This week she’ll show us her diploma.
“Those whose goal is to be famous and own lots of stuff are headed for disappointment whether they get it or not,” she is saying. “All around us people are living for themselves. I would like to present to you the rest. This class is going to do amazing things. We are going to be poor, we are going to be ridiculed, mocked, and persecuted. But we will turn this world upside down with the love of God, because His strength is made perfect in weakness.”
That evening more than a hundred people visited our house to celebrate and thank her for her speech. A few were complete strangers who heard there was free food. And after the last one left, I told Ramona of the glorious freedom we would experience when all our children are gone. Of the financial savings. After all, we had to remortgage the house to pay for Rachael’s prom dress. We can enjoy lunch on our own schedule. Dinner, too. We can watch movies that are not in the New Release section. We can take out our hearing aids and play our music loud. Old hymns at deafening levels. No one will burst into the room scowling at us. We can go to bed at 10 p.m. and rest in peace. We can chase each other through the house wearing whatever we please.
Then why the tears as we stood looking at Rachael’s empty room? The Winnie-the-Pooh border. The carpet scarred by nail polish remover. Because there are times I’d gladly trade every carpet in the house for another evening when she sat on my lap begging for one more story, one more piggyback ride, one more hug good night.
Yet our house is far from empty. In every room you’ll find memory marks. In the kitchen, an oak cabinet bears a black scar where the candles on a surprise birthday cake almost brought the house down. We smile when we look at it. Sit in the living room and you can almost smell the popcorn from those nights we popped it onto a clean sheet on the floor. Dig deeply enough and you’ll find old kernels buried in the sofa. Ah, memories.
And so we give thanks to God for what we have. For the wisdom to make memories over making money. To hold these children close while we could. And we’re thankful we have one more child left at home. Sometimes I hear him and his friends lugging guitars and drums and heavy amplifiers down the stairs, carving more memory marks in the walls.
“Oops,” they say.
I’m thankful I’m still young enough to sneak downstairs and pull the main breaker.
When I hear somebody sigh, “Life is hard,”
I am always tempted to say, “Compared to what?”
SYDNEY J. HARRIS
Comedy was not my first choice. I wanted to be strong and good-looking. I wanted to have girls talk about me in front of my back. But I discovered early in life that the gals weren’t looking for a sense of humor. They wanted solid chiseled features. And money for snacks. I had neither. So my dad tried to console me: “Poverty is hereditary,” he said. “You get it from your children.”
A sense of humor is too. I got it from my dad.
For the most part, comedians come from either of two backgrounds: severely depressed or extremely happy. Trust me on this, there is seldom middle ground. I grew up in a family where laughter was a staple. Where my parents loved each other and loved their children. My earliest memories are of Mom reading me Winnie-the-Pooh and Dad hiding in darkened rooms waiting to scare the living daylights out of me. Each of our three children has at some point experienced me pulling back their collars and sneezing down their necks. I got the idea from my dad. (I highly recommend it as a family tradition. I guarantee it’s something your child will remember for years. Before you sneeze, though, make sure it’s your child.)
The older I get, the more this sense of humor is coming in handy.
Mom and Dad lie in separate beds in the same hospital now, not quite knowing where they are. Each time I visit, they ask me about it, so I explain it to them like it’s the first time, and the lights come on, then quickly fade.
I once asked my dad the secret to their lengthy marriage, and his eyes twinkled. “Senility,” he said. “I wake up beside her each morning and I can’t remember who she is. So each day is a new adventure.”
It was funny back then.
But now the two old lovers are saying a slow good-bye to this earth, surrounded by children who love them and nurses whose sweetness surprises me at times.
Looking for Dad the other night, I found him slumped in a chair, tears streaming down his cheeks. “It’s all right,” said a slender young nurse, placing a gentle arm about his shoulder.
“Hey,” I joked to her, “he’s already take
n.”
Dad crossed his eyes and pushed his false teeth out at me.
The phone woke me one morning. It was Dad. “Someone stole my pants,” he said. “Where’s my wallet? Can you bring me some money?”
I told him I was loaded, I’d be right over.
“Hurry,” he said. “I’m going to see a movie.” I couldn’t help but grin. Dad didn’t just leave the pool hall in his teens; he hadn’t stepped inside a movie theater since becoming a Christian more than sixty years ago.
By the time I arrived, he had forgotten why. Seeing me, he said, “What are you doing here? Don’t you work?”
I didn’t know what else to do, so I laughed.
“I’ve been out riding the range with Roy Rogers,” he said. “We’re gonna rope some cattle together. Your mother left me, you know.”
Ah, Dad. None of us dreamed it would come to this.
Yesterday, my mother—a woman I have seen share her faith with leather-clad bikers, the girl who led me to Christ when I was a lad—was convinced that God had abandoned her. I was stroking her white hair and singing:
All the way my Savior leads me
Oh, the fullness of His love!
Perfect rest to me is promised
In my Father’s house above.
Suddenly she interrupted me. “No, He didn’t.” She was indignant.
“You mean Jesus?” I asked.
“He stopped leading me.”
“When?” I stammered.
“Last Wednesday.”
Doubts come and go. Events of sixty years ago are clearer than the morning news. My mother, once an accomplished writer and my biggest fan, often struggles to finish a four-word sentence. But tonight she is listening to beautiful hymns on a CD player she can’t operate and smiling with her eyes closed. “Tell me about the kids,” she says.
Dad is concerned that he has misplaced the keys to the car—a car that no longer runs. I tell him they’re around here somewhere. I’ll find them, don’t worry. I can’t believe I’m lying to my father. Surely they have manuals for this kind of thing, but I’m learning as I go.
I’ve brought along a book and I read it to my mother out loud. It is the same tattered copy of Winnie-the-Pooh that she read to me when I was four. “How cold my toes…tiddly-pom,” I sing using a tune she taught me.
As I leave tonight, I take part again in our grand role reversal, whispering good night to the woman who tucked me in with a thousand good-night kisses.
“God bless you,” I say
“He does,” she smiles. “He gave me you.”
Then she motions my daughter Rachael to her bedside. “Grandma loves you,” she says. “Say it after me so you’ll never forget. Grandma loves me.”
Rachael smiles and wipes a tear.
Dad is seated in a nearby chair, getting ready for a trip, he says. Going back to Ontario, where he spent his boyhood. Gonna see the tall oak trees and swim in the Elora Gorge. He smiles as he tells me this, and I wonder if it’s not the most profound thing he’s uttered in years. We’re all getting ready for a trip, aren’t we? Packing light. Going Home.
Outside, Rachael wants to drive. I can’t believe she’s already this age. “Will you visit me when I’m old?” I ask, wiping tears and fumbling for the car keys. She smiles her agreement. “I need a hug,” I say. She leans close.
Ah yes, I can feel a sneeze coming on.
Alzheimer’s Is Limited
It cannot steal the memories I have of you.
It cannot rob the moments we spent laughing together,
Or fade the pictures in my wallet.
Alzheimer’s is limited.
It cannot weaken faith.
Deprive me of peace.
Steal my joy.
Or cripple hope.
It cannot shake my confidence that there is a divine plan
though I can’t quite see it from here.
Death can take you from me for a time,
but it cannot steal you away forever.
Alzheimer’s is limited.
It cannot shorten eternal life.
It cannot ruin God’s plans for the ultimate family reunion
Coming one day soon.
And joy will come again
—warm and secure,
if only for the now,
laughing we endure.
RUTH BELL GRAHAM
Dear Dad,
We laid you to rest on a Wednesday under the wide Canadian sky. I was hoping for a stray rain cloud to disguise my tears, but I wasn’t alone in that department. Saying good-bye to one you’ve admired since you were knee-high to a tricycle isn’t easy. But one who read you bedtime stories? Taught you to ride a bike? And loved you enough to say so? It is positively heartbreaking. Teenagers don’t hang out in cemeteries much, but your grandkids refused to leave on Wednesday.
The night before you crossed the River Jordan, they crowded around your bed and sang the hymns you loved to hear. Twice you took my daughter’s hand and tried to raise it to your lips. When at last you succeeded in kissing it, she began to weep from sadness and joy and the delight of another memory she’ll carry for life.
And that’s what you were about, Dad. Memories.
When you thought no one was watching, I learned to laugh. I asked you once what you’d like us to say about you when you’re gone. You said with a straight face, “I’d like you to say, ‘Look! He’s moving!’ “ But I know you wouldn’t trade the riches of eternity for this time-locked place.
When I was a lad, I loved to sneak up on you and watch what you were doing when you didn’t know I was there. I don’t know that a kid ever adored his dad more than I did.
I saw you smack your thumb with a hammer once, and I held my breath. You danced around using strong language like “Oh shoot!” Then you snickered.
If anyone had reason to cuss, it was you. Your mother died when you were two, leaving you roaming the streets of your hometown alone while your father toiled in a furniture factory. Raised by crazy uncles in a home where the unspeakable was commonplace, you graduated from the school of hard knocks before you entered first grade. But you never shouldered a backpack of grudges. Instead, you warmed our Canadian winters telling stories of a childhood I found enviable, one jammed with fistfights and loaded rifles. You told those stories with a twinkle, too. That twinkle was a way of life for you.
When you thought no one was watching, I learned how to treat a woman. I learned to honor her and open doors for her and when to tip my hat. I learned that we’re toast without the ladies, so put them first in line at potlucks. I learned to let them stroll on the inside of the sidewalk so when we’re hit by an oncoming truck, they’ll still be around to care for the kids.
When you thought no one was watching, I learned what was worth chasing. You avoided the deceptive staircase promising “success,” investing in memories instead.
You never owned a new car, but scrounged to buy tent trailers for family vacations.
You blew money on ice cream so we’d stay at the table longer.
You bought flowers for my mother and gifts for my children.
Watching your life, I learned that simplicity is the opposite of simple-mindedness, that those who win the rat race are still rats.
Going through your dresser last night, I found your glasses, heart pills, and a reading lamp. I suspect you’re doing fine without them.
You didn’t leave much behind. Believe me, we’ve looked.
In a folder marked “Will,” you’d misfiled a note Mom gave you listing your attributes. She made you sound like Father Teresa. “On time for work. A gentleman. Filled with integrity. Wholesome in speech. Loves family. Loves God.” I guess it was filed correctly. It’s the best inheritance a kid could hope for.
When you thought no one was watching, you showed me how to encourage others. I saw you hug teenagers who had more earrings than brain cells. You smiled and blessed them. Apart from Mom, you were my most boisterous fan, always wanting to applaud my latest
book or hear where I was traveling to next. Sometimes now, when I achieve something you would have found significant, it’s like I sunk a hole-in-one while golfing by myself.
When you thought no one was watching, I learned how to bring God’s Word to life. Hours before you passed away, I had you to myself. You were struggling to breathe, and my singing didn’t help, so I told you I loved you and thanked you for being a good dad. Then I opened the same old King James Bible I watched you read when I was a boy. You’d underlined some glorious verses in Revelation 21, and though my voice cracked and quavered, I read them out loud. “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” By the time I reached the promise that your name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, you were sound asleep.
Friday morning the sun rose on your face, and you simply stopped breathing. No more tears. No more Alzheimer’s. Home free.
You’ll be glad to know your granddaughter Elena braided your comb-over like she’d done a hundred times before. We sat by your bedside, and your daughter, Ruth, said, “Do you suppose he’s saved?” And we laughed way too loud—from the deep assurance that you’re with Jesus.
Someone said, “I’m sorry you lost your dad,” and I said, “Thank you. But how can I say I’ve lost him when I know exactly where he is?”
When you thought no one was watching, I learned how to die. With relationships intact, with nothing left unsaid.
Four of your five children were there. When we went to tell Mom of your passing, Tim asked, “Do you know why we’re here?”
Family Squeeze Page 14
