My family comes from a long line of storytellers.
My grandpa told stories, mostly to family, but really to anyone who would (or wouldn’t) listen, telling us about things that may or may not have happened, and he frequently embellished the tales with a few dramatic details to make them more compelling or humorous. It was of no importance whether or not these details were actually true, because the stories were just so good.
My dad also told stories, mostly to family, but also to people at church, at the grocery store, guests at the bed and breakfast he and my mom ran. One of his favorite tales, an epic that became family legend, was that of the summer high school day when his friend, Mike Watty, traveled with my dad’s family to a swimming pool that happened to have a diving board with a minor design flaw: It was made out of wood, with a rusty nail sticking out of its end. Mike Watty, as you might have already guessed, hit that nail just right (or wrong) and ended up heading to the hospital in my grandpa’s car, a car that was brand new: a blue Plymouth with white leather seats. And let’s just say that my grandpa was more concerned about the condition of his seats than the severity of poor Mike’s injuries.
In my dad’s reenactment of this story, the drive to the hospital was full of peril. That may not be how the story happened, but the retelling was so masterfully performed that none of us questioned its veracity.
Both of my brothers have inherited the familial storytelling gene. Earlier this year, after my dad’s funeral, we sat around a dining room table and wept with laughter as my brothers recalled, with embellishment and exaggeration, stories about my dad and our childhood. After such a painful few weeks watching my dad die, the narratives were a welcome joy, and it remains one of my sweetest memories during a bitter time.
Recently, I thought about my dad’s storytelling abilities, and how he had so clearly passed them on, and I thought, out of all of the stories that he told, the best were the stories he told with his life: That in spite of his failings, in spite of his fears, in spite of his just being a flawed human who walked the earth, he deeply believed in God’s love for him. He deeply believed in God’s adoption of him. He deeply believed in God’s acceptance of him. And, when my dad died, that became his greatest gift, and the greatest story he ever told me.
You see, in the last year of my dad’s life, as he was recovering from a botched surgery, he became very fearful: fearful of falling, which led to fear of walking. This was understandable, since he had fallen many times and needed help to get back up, something which was humbling for him. When he ended up in the hospital and then was sent home under hospice, however, something changed and, in his dying, he gave me that last gift.
In the last moments of my dad’s life, all of that fear was gone. He opened his eyes and looked right at my mom, and I felt his spirit leave his body, and there was total peace. Total quiet. No more suffering. He had simply gone from looking into my mom’s eyes to looking into the face of God. And he was not afraid.
I’m sure Dad’s stories will always be passed around our family like the little treasures they are but for now, I hold tightly to the last story he ever told, the one he told without any words, the one he told with his very final breath:
That the promises were true.
That his hope had not been misplaced.
That his God was enough in the end.
During the weeks after my dad’s passing, there were signs of new life all around. The green fuzz of fresh leaves appeared on the trees in my yard. The daffodils popped their cheery yellow heads up through the tender, baby grass. There was resurrection all around.
Now, months after his passing, as the leaves begin their own deaths, I never question whether or not new life will return. It always does; every year; every spring; every time. Just like we were promised it would. Just like resurrection. It is a story that needs no embellishment, a story of a love that will not let us go.
