Dear Zachary, Cassidy and Emily:
Across the years I have written several letters addressed to you, my grandchildren, which have appeared in this column. They have covered several different topics. When Zachary was born, I wrote about what it means to be a Baptist in anticipation that one day he might join those of the baptized way. And he has. I wrote one to you two granddaughters expressing my hope that, when you are grown, you will be able to fulfill whatever God’s calling is for your life. And I believe that you will.
Fred Anderson
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This is the letter which I had hoped would never need to be written. It is about death. It is not a happy subject for anyone and certainly not for children who are 7, 10 and 12 years of age. I knew that sooner or later it would enter into your life experiences. It came suddenly just after the joys of Christmas and it came shockingly because your great-grandfather, even at 92, was in good health and very robust.
When your parents married, we acquired an extended family; and we have enjoyed knowing your mother’s parents and grandparents. When we all were expecting the birth of our first grandchild, we were given quilt squares by your mother and each one was told to make a design and sign the name by which they wanted to be known. And that’s how your great-grandparents became known as your pappy and granny and how I became papa. Each had chosen the names and repeated the names and Zachary, the first born, chose to call them by those names and each one of you followed.
Dorothy and Roy Wray, your granny and pappy, are remarkable people; and since you three live so close to them, I know that your lives are intertwined and that it is a joy to experience their love. They have centered their lives upon their family and their church, Oak Level Baptist Church in Henry County, Virginia.
We will miss your pappy. He had many experiences since his birth in 1917 yet he chose to spend most of his life right where he was born. He knew and appreciated the land and understood how you can live off the creatures of the forest and the produce of the garden. He and Granny canned vegetables and filled their basement with enough to supply a campmeeting. He was resourceful and just days before he died he had prepared eight truckloads of firewood for the winter. He was inventive and could devise solutions to all kinds of problems. He learned the ways of the bees and became a beekeeper. He understood a hardscrabble world which required work but he also lived as if there was much more to existence than labor. He was full of stories and he had a quick mind for solving puzzles. He also had a good understanding of politics and enjoyed sharing his opinions on any political contest. Each of you will own your collection of memories of him; and among them, you will have memories of the time of his death.
You must continue to think about him, to share memories of him, to speak his name. Just because he is not in the room does not mean that he is not in your life.
I still remember when death first entered into my life. I must have been about 7 years old when my first pet, a beautiful cat, did not answer the call to come into the house. I went looking for the cat and I still remember finding it lifeless. I still remember the loss.
The first person to die in my family in my lifetime was a great-aunt who was everyone’s favorite. I must have been about 13 and I still remember the sense of loss. At 17 I stood beside my grandfather’s bed on the evening when he died. He had been sick only for a little while. The doctor had come to the house that very afternoon and told us that he would not live very long and that it was best for him to remain at home.
My grandmother sat on the bed and held my grandfather’s head in her lap. When he took his last breath, I quickly led my young brother and sister out of our house to stay with a neighbor. When I returned to our house, my grandmother insisted that the children return. She said that they should not be frightened by death. She had experienced the deaths of her parents and two of her children and the gift she gave to us on that evening was a sense of peace and a witness of faith in the time of death. It still required years of living before I understood that death is a part of life’s experience. In time I even began to understand what my grandmother meant when she said that there are some things worse than death.
In my mind, I can replay every detail of that evening of my grandfather’s death although I certainly do not replay it often; yet even after all these years, I can remember that when I went to bed late that night, I wondered to myself how the passage of life to death had taken place. It had happened right before our eyes yet we were powerless to stop it. But the real mystery was not in the death of his body but in the passing of the soul into the Christian view of life after death. I could not understand it then and I still do not understand. It is a mystery and it is a part of our faith.
There is an illustration which has been used many times. It first was written by the famous writer Victor Hugo but there are several versions. It presents the view of the continuation of life. It comes from the days of sailing ships.
“I am standing upon the shore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength and I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white clouds just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says, ‘There! She’s gone!’
‘Gone where?’ ‘Gone from my sight, that’s all.’ She is just as large as ever she was when she left my side; just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of her destination. Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at that moment when someone at my side says, ‘There! She’s gone!,’ there are other eyes watching her coming and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, ‘Here she comes!’ And that’s dying.”
With Much Love, Your Papa
Fred Anderson is executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage and Studies. He may be contacted at [email protected] or at P.O. Box 34, University of Richmond, VA 23173.