By DAVID EPPS
Pastor

In the spring of 1973, my maternal grandfather, Charles Daniel Duckett, passed away. I received the news while stationed at Quantico, Va., during my final few days of being processed for my discharge from the United States Marine Corps.

I couldn't believe that he was gone. My grandfather had always been such a strong, vibrant man, a man's man, as they say. In his younger days, he had been a tough character, a rider of the rails during the Great Depression, and, the story goes, a member of the Ku Klux Klan. In his gentler, saner years, he married a widow woman with three daughters (my mother was the middle child), and became a pipe fitter, a Democrat, and a union man.

In 1970, he had been the first man in my family to see me in my summer dress uniform as I returned home from Parris Island, S.C., where I had successfully navigated the infamous Marine boot camp. Grandpa never doubted that I would make it through, he said in the car on the way home. But then, Grandpa had always allowed me the luxury of my silly dreams.

Somewhere around my eighth birthday, Dad was laid off from the paper company. A proud, independent man, Dad worked long hours at two or three menial jobs in order to put food on the table and pay the mortgage. He dug postholes, put in sewer lines, traded guns and looked for full-time work. Most weeks he worked seven days. It would be several years before he would be able to work only one job.

Into this gap stepped Grandpa. I can't recall if Grandpa was retired by this time, but he always seemed to be calling on me to go fishing whenever the weather was nice. I had a brand new brother at home, so Mom had her hands full. Dad was gone most of the time until past my bedtime, so I was alone, or so it felt.

The feeling, however, didn't last long, for Grandpa would pick me up and we'd gather a can of big, red earthworms from the worm bed in his back yard. With a couple of packs of saltine crackers and a few cans of pork and beans, we'd be off to our favorite spot on the banks of Boone Lake or on the Holston River.

During those lazy days in Tennessee, Grandpa would teach me how to bait a hook, how to cast, how to recognize a nibble from a bite, how to set the hook, and, when successful, how to clean a blue gill, or a bass, or the occasional carp. Most of the time, though, he just smoked his sweet-smelling pipe and listened to me ramble on, as little boys are prone to do.

Once, he asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up. I told him that I wanted to live with him and fish these lakes and rivers.

"But how will we make money?" he asked. "We'll sell the fish," I proclaimed.

"But who will buy our fish?" he inquired. Pondering this deep question, I finally answered, "The fish guy at the Oakwood Market! They sell fish. They have to get them somewhere. We'll sell them our fish!"

He seemed pleased with the answer. "But where will we live?" he queried as he knocked the spent tobacco from the pipe bowl.

"You and I can get a house boat and we'll live on the lake and fish all day and night," said I, with all my third-grade wisdom.

"That sounds like a fine plan, son, and a wonderful dream. A man's got to have a dream," he said as I nodded solemnly.

Grandpa never challenged my childish plans, never dashed my dreams. When I was with him, I felt that anything was possible. Grandpa was a patient listener and a quiet encourager. I never did buy a houseboat and never became a professional fisherman, but I did continue to dream as Grandpa taught me to do.

When he died, I was devastated. I spent my last day in the Marine Corps, standing stiffly in my winter dress greens, as they lowered him into the ground at the cemetery in Lynn Garden, just a few miles from the Virginia border. I was married by then, with a small son of my own.

After the service, I walked down the hill to the car and opened the door for my small family. Then, instead of getting behind the wheel, I walked back up to the fresh mound of earth covered by hundreds of arranged flowers for a final visit with this man who had married the widow lady with three small daughters and, in doing so, became my Grandpa.

There, faced with the first real loss of my life, I was 8 years old again. After trying to find the words that stubbornly stuck in my throat, I finally sank to my knees in the brown dirt and just wept.

This past Sunday, as I traveled from church on Father's Day, I reflected on being the father of three grown sons, and the grandfather of three grandsons and a granddaughter.

My grandfathers and father are all gone, and I am now the patriarch. I had lunch with all the grandkids, ages 6, 5, 4, and 3, and went to a movie with them that night. I hope that I can be a better listener than I was as a father; I pray that I can be an encourager instead of always finding fault, as I tended to do with my sons. I earnestly desire that they will always tell me their dreams, however impossible or silly.

I still miss Grandpa, even after 28 years. Sometimes, when no one is around, I remember those wonder-filled days and I smile, thinking about all the dreams that eventually came true. And then, in the quietness of that same solitude, I weep, missing the familiar sweet tobacco aroma and wishing that he could have been there just a few more times.

[David Epps is rector of Christ the King Church in Peachtree City. He may be contacted at FatherDavidEpps@aol.com or at www.ChrustTheKingCEC.com.]

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