A Man Unknown

On a more serious note, this has been eating at me for a while now and I think it’s time to write it down. A couple of years back my ex-wife’s grandfather passed away. My ex and I have always been on good terms and I had gone to her grandfather’s house every holiday. When I think of her grandfather I picture him wearing what appeared to be army issue glasses while affixed to a small couch in a tiny living room with only a television set between him an his wife in the attached kitchen. I would always be greeted with a quick wave and smile. What I knew of him back then has just been written above except that he enjoyed working in his garden and collecting coins. Sadly, I wouldn’t know that we had more in common until the day of his funeral. So as not to offend his family if they happen upon my little web site, we’ll just call him James for now. We filed into a thin room at the funeral home and were greeted by a solemn round-faced preacher who stood poised to give the same speech I had heard many times, or so I thought. “James had asked that his funeral not take place at the church” the preacher began awkwardly. There was a long pause as he tried to find words to replace the script he had memorised for such an occasion. That’s when it struck me. Wow! In a family full of die-hard Baptists he was a non-believer! I had never known him to go to church or take part in blessings before meals but I guess those things easily go unnoticed. “I had met with James a few times lately and tried to turn him to the lord” he continued in a somewhat defeated voice. “We can only hope he had a change of heart”. After stumbling over this topic for a few more sentences, he slipped into the diatribe of heaven and the promises of everlasting life being careful to omit anything that would infer that James was now in heaven. And thankfully also not mentioning where he thought James had ended up. You would think at this point, with the uncomfortable subject of his lack of faith out of the way, someone would step up to talk about who he was as a person. Maybe it was evangelistic guilt or peer pressure but none of the few who spoke on his behalf would say anything about James or of his life at all except that he loved to work in his garden. All of us like to believe we leave some sort of legacy when our lives end. Something that will carry on when we’re gone. When you really think about it, even the least conspicuous of us has some small impact on everyone we meet. Every action has some sort of consequence on world around us. Like rain on a pond, even the smallest of drops cause a ripple throughout it. James’ legacy will also be carried on biologically through his children. What bothered me most is that no one seemed to care about his life because he wasn’t a Christian. It seemed as if his entire existence was nothing more than an insult to their beliefs and needed to be dismissed. For Christmas after James had passed, I gave James’ daughter (my children’s grandmother) a bound notebook and a voice recorder so that she could record stories of her family to have published into a book for the kids to have when they’re older. I hope she will write about her father so my kids, and myself can know more about him.