Last night I attended the visitation for a friend and former National Guard soldier, Charlie David Hobgood. David was 53. Of him, his wife said that he loved his family and he loved the National Guard. Another fellow soldier remarked that David would do anything that you asked of him and never asked for anything in return. He had a weak body, but a good heart. That's a pretty good legacy to leave behind you. David was a character; he would bring to annual training a footlocker full of National Enquirers and Hustler magazines. In his laundry bag would be at least two gallons of Jack Daniels that he'd purchased with his "J, D" money. Any bill that had a J or a D in the serial number went in his pocket for his favorite drink; the rest went to his wife to pay the bills. I'll miss David.
I stood outside the Gentry-Newell Funeral Home in Oxford waiting for other old friends to show up, but they didn't. While I waited I looked across the street at the campus where I attended school from the first grade until I graduated in 1970. Also visible from the steps of the funeral home was the end of the street I'd grown up on, Forest Avenue. It was hard to beleive that a half-century ago I would ride my bike over those same cracked sidewalks on my way down-town to the Orpheum or to my dad's hardware store, Morton's Hardware. As I marveled at how fast time has passed: fifty years when I played on that street, twelve years since I'd retired from the National Guard and last seen David, twenty-seven years since I've last seen the children from my first marriage....I realized that most of my life is behind me...just not the best part.
Thinking back to my youth, I recalled my parents and how they worked hard, sacrificed for my brothers and me, and made sure that we had everything we needed growing up. We weren't one of those overly affectional families. My father worked hard six days a week and would come home and work the garden until dark; go to bed and be back at work at 6:30 the next morning. My mother kept the house, took in sewing and helped relatives put up tobacco in the summers.
If I had to sum up my parents in a couple of words, I guess I'd say that my father (Daddy) was strong and generous. I've seen him hoist two 50 lb feed bags on his shoulders and take them out to the back of a farmer's truck. I've seen him grab a hammer off the wall behind him and chase a knife-wielding robber down the street and cathch him in front of the court-house and beat the hell out of him. I was scared at the time but it's funny thinking back on it. I've also seen him write off a farmer's debt to the store when their crops didn't turn out, and I've ridden with him many times to take vegetables we grew in our garden to the homes of widows and elderly people.
My mother wasn't as outgoing as my father. Where he was witty, she was shy. Two words that would describe Mama are, devoted and cynical. Perhaps I got my own brand of sarcastic humor from the two of them. Mama complained about everything, but she wouldn't quit on people, especially her kids. I never had a birthday party growing up because Mama was too shy to invite people into the house, but many times she would squeeze a little money in my hand that she'd earned from sewing or washing other people's sheets and tell me to go see a movie. Other times I couldn't go out of the yard and if I failed to respond when she called me, a switch was waiting when I got home.
My dad earned $65 a week back then, yet we had a least one vacation every year, often two; he drove a fairly new vehicle every couple of years, and we never went hungry or without clothes for school and church. Mama said it was because Daddy tithed regularly. She also would scold us when we complained about not having something we wanted that my dad worked hard and that he could buy that scratchy, one-ply toilet paper, but instead he bought the good stuff for us - so be grateful!
Like most teenagers, I couldn't wait to grow up and get away from home, even if it meant responding to my draft notice and giving them two more years if they'd train me in military intelligence. My parents never stopped being parents however. When I came home in the early 1970s to the still segregated South with an African wife, they opened their home and let her stay with them while I sought a home at Ft. Bragg. When I was stationed in Berlin, they surprised me for my birthday by flying in. Neither had ever been on a plane, let alone crossed the ocean to another continent. Having no car, we walked or took the bus everywhere we went, pushing strollers because by then there were two children. By the time there were four, and a different wife, my parents made regular trips to Augusta, Georgia to visit us. Mama always insisted on cooking and Daddy always snuck a $50 or a $100 bill in my pocket before they left.
That's something I didn't really think about until last night looking down my old street. My parents always wanted to be part of my life, even when I'd left and started a life of my own. In their latter years both were forced by circumstance to enter nursing homes. My dad lasted six months - he was always strong. Although I would visit and bring Mama, I was never comfortable with the smell of the home or the vacant look my father's eyes had. He knew that it would be a week, maybe two before family would come see him again; and although he never was one to toss around a baseball with his son, he was fiercely proud of my service and that I was the first in the family to graduate from high school. My mother lived to be 93, her mind still as sharp and critical as when I'd grown up. She only lasted a month, and altough we visited her every night after work, I remember the fear in her eyes as we left for our homes. For both my parents, home and family were as important as church and honoring God.
Now that my youngest is a rising senior, soon to be college student and starting a life of her own, I understand why my parents wanted to remain part of our lives. Someone needs to remember those who raised us the best way they knew how. We need to remember those who put their loved ones before themselves, who sacrificed their dreams to help make their children's dreams come true. We need to have someone validate that we did make an impact on this earth when we were alive. That doesn't mean that we never mattered to God, but it's important to us that we matter to those we love.
If I could take my daughter aside and tell her something important that will leave a piece of my legacy behind, it would be to remember the moments, to live this time you have now. The things that irritate her now will seem precious to her later on. What she couldn't wait to flee from will be the place she most longs to return to. The ones who smother her now will be the ones she most wants to hold her when life gets tough. I know that I will always want to be a part of someone who has given me unspeakable joy and purpose; and wherever she goes, she takes a part of me with her. Like David, we might not have as many years as my parents enjoyed on this earth. What we do have is this moment and our memories and the legacy left us by those who walked this life with us for awhile.
God bless Daddy, God bless Mama, God bless David, God bless my little girl. God bless you.
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