A Legacy

We lived across the street from each other.
Our children grew up together.
In those years, the neighborhood consisted mostly of boys.
There were five sets of brothers ready to play football, basketball, or ride bikes together.

You always knew where everybody was because you saw the bikes on the driveway.
It seemed like the boys were either at our house or the house across the street.
Football was better on their front lawn; there was no large evergreen trees to contend with.
Board games were better at our house because we had a shady side porch with a table.

I made more popcorn than was humanly possible.
Boys needed sustenance.
If I made brownies, they got some.
I remember when a power outage allowed them to finish off the ice cream.

Sweet memories.

As in any life, sweet is mixed with bitter.
Ten years ago, my neighbor, my friend across the street lost her husband.
Her tall, healthy, athletic husband, father of her four children, died.
He died of lung cancer, yet never smoked a day in his life.

It was a difficult time.
I literally walked with her through the ordeal.
We walked most mornings together and I listened.
I prayed and she knew it; it gave her strength.

I remember after her husband died, there was a horrible storm.
It was determined that a small tornado touched down in our surrounding area.
Portions of our neighborhood were hit.
The house across the street, where the husband and father had died, lost most of its trees.

I had been out when the storm hit.
It took me two hours to get home, when the drive would have taken less than twenty minutes.
I saw her on her lawn as I drove into our neighborhood.
She looked lost and confused.

I walked over and gently touched her shoulder.
She turned and hugged me and cried into my shoulder.
So much loss!
She would not let go.

Her twin daughters missed their daddy, but it was her two sons who felt his loss so deeply.
During her husband’s illness, I met her parents.
They were lovely and so very good to their daughter and her children.
I often wondered how she would have gotten through everything without them.

Her father was very tall with a smile that went from ear to ear.
Her mother was short and sweet with red hair.
After meeting her mom, I knew where she and one of her sons got their red hair.
Her parents loved each other well.

That love spilled over onto their family.
Her father stepped in when their own father was gone.
Until recently, I never knew how much of a role he played in their lives.
Right before Christmas, the man she called daddy, went home to be with the Lord.

I was in my kitchen one evening before Christmas.
My neighbor, who had since moved away, had been on my mind.
I sent her a text.
She responded with a lengthy text, telling me that her dad was in hospice.

There were no words.
The tall man, with the smile from ear to ear, was dying.
The urge to reach out to her was so strong.
I had no idea.

Why do things seem to happen at Christmas time?
People get sick and enter hospice all through the year.
However, when it happens at Christmas, it seems to make the ordeal that much bigger.
When there is so much joy, she was dealing with so much pain.

I had not heard anything from her.
I sent her a text after Christmas to check in with her.
My father died on December 21, was her answer.
My heart was broken.

Her father’s service was this past weekend.
The line, waiting to talk to the family, was long.
The church was filled to capacity.
There were many familiar faces.

There was only one face I wanted to see.
The face of the one with whom I walked ten years ago.
The face of the one for whom I prayed.
The face of the one who hugged me and didn’t let go on her front lawn with trees around us.

I went through the line, talking to her children.
I approached the small woman, married for 64 years to the man who is now with the Lord.
She remembered me.
There beside her was the face I came to see.

She hugged me.
She didn’t let go.
So much loss! She said as if our conversation from ten years ago was being repeated.
I know, but look down the line…look at his legacy! I reminded her.

She looked at the faces of her children.
She looked at the faces of her nieces and nephews.
Her father was Pop-Pop to eight grandchildren.
He was also a great-grandfather to two little boys born on the same day five months ago.

His legacy was standing next to her.
A piece of her father was in each and every one of them.
Loss, but life.
Generations made possible because two people fell in love after meeting at a college dance.

I listened to her speak so beautifully about her dad.
I listened as her oldest son spoke about his Pop-Pop.
I never knew that his grandfather met him weekly for lunch.
His pop-pop filled the huge void left by the death of his own father.

This tall young man, now with his own wife, spoke so tenderly about his Pop-Pop.
This young man talked about wanting a legacy just like his Pop-Pop.
He wants to love people like his Pop-Pop loved them.
He wants to have time for people just like his Pop-Pop always did.

My Pop-Pop had a motto that he lived by, this young man told us.
Family first, all the time.
Those words are still tumbling in my mind.
This man lived his 88 years well and impacted many.

I got out to my car and cried.
He was a veteran, so an honor guard folded the flag and gave it to his wife.
When I heard Taps played so softly and so sadly, I was undone.
He served; he always served.

I know that he is with the Lord and for that I rejoice.
I cried because I was reminded of the influence of one life for good.
One life touches so many other lives.
Even the littlest thing done in love, matters.

A legacy.
One man.
Family first, all the time.
It matters.