Remembering

I'm on the downhill side of middle-aged, and my memory is going down the hill with me. Why is it that some aspects of memory slip away just as others become more vivid?

When I was visiting my mother I confiscated another photo album. She's often told me to do so; there are so many photos and albums, and better to sort through them now than all at once, in a weepy hurry, after she dies. These albums bring back a flood of memories. This was a little album with a note from my daddy in the front: "May 1998 thru." His precise, architectural handwriting is easy to spot, especially years before a stroke made it wobbly.

1998 was a busy year. One granddaughter was born that May. Evidently that summer the two oldest grandchildren came to visit my parents at their home in the North Carolina mountains and attended camp. Afterward a grand road trip began -- my parents drove to West Virginia and then out to Iowa to return those two kids to their home. Along the way they visited other kids and grandkids. Here are a few photos from this album, hopefully in order:

My daddy with Kesse, oldest granddaughter

Daddy being silly with my kids, which was a regular occurrence when he was not yet elderly.
I think he and Mother took the kids on a hike in the Cradle of Forestry.

Two Iowa cousins playing with three younger West Virginia cousins.
Cousin ties are strong in our family, mostly thanks to efforts by my daddy, like this road trip.

One of my all-time favorite family pics.
The expression on my daddy's face shows exactly how he felt about family, grandkids, and life in general.

Back in Iowa, three sisters lounge in a pool in Independence.

I sometimes wonder now how the kids remember these days, but this photo shows how I remember it: Peter snuggled in his grandmother's lap. Lorien snuggled in mine. Cousins huddled together in fun. Family together. My daddy's hands around it all. The children's days were full of play and hours of freedom (and lots of beanie babies).

My daddy's 70th birthday party. Silly hats on grown men.

We spent a lot of time at my parents' mountain home.
 It was a place of safety, peace, and love for our family.
Yes, that's the kind of TV we had back then!
No cell phones. No internet. No facebook!

Our kids spent a lot of time outdoors playing at my parents' house.
I only regret that Julia wasn't born yet, or she would've been in the thick of things with these umbrellas!

My daddy was an over-comer. He had a rough childhood in a difficult family followed by two years of dangerous war in Korea. But he set his mind to having fun and family, and did his best to accomplish a life in which he poured his life into others. This was a challenge for him, but he tried. He was a doer -- he was not a man with deep emotional reserves to talk long into the wee hours of the night. (That was my mother.) He was the man who worked hard to provide the infrastructure of life -- home, trips, camp, good advice, church, financial help, keeping in touch, and more -- that eased the lives of others, especially his children and grandchildren. He had many people leaning on him, and it was never too much. 

I miss him every day. I wondered for a second why he's on my mind today. Then I realized his birthday is in two days. He would be 91 years old. He never expected to live as long as he did, but I think he stuck around to help everybody as long as he could. I never feel he's far away at all. And I don't feel that he's gone. The Bible says that we're surrounded by a "great cloud of witnesses" - those who've left this earth before us. Daddy's in that cloud of supporters, cheering me on.