ClayQ Blog

The Almost-Autobiography of a 90-year-old Man

As you can see from my post a year ago, I made Dad a photo-biography for his 90th Birthday. He greatly enjoyed it, and we all enjoyed the trip down memory lane, recounting his life in many of his own photos. He enjoyed photography so much! But Dad passed away just a year after that, right after his 91st birthday.

What Dad left us was a gift, and also a burden – his autobiography. For 10 years he had been working on this book! But since he had Parkinson’s disease, he just couldn’t pull things together to finish it. Besides that, he had another affliction: he was a Bookkeeper! So he was distracted by the details and just barely made it to 1948. Since my older sister was born the year after that, we kept urging him along: Get Susan born! Sadly, she also passed away 6 months before my dad, so she never saw the light of day. We were so mad at him! So why didn't he finish it? It wasn't that he didn't have enough time! He lived to 91! Now we realize it was not only his distractions, but probably also his Parkinson’s.

None of us had read any drafts, so we were anxious to know what it contained. After all this work, we couldn’t let it just disappear with his hard drive! I ended by not only reading it, but taking on the burden of editing it, adding photos, and making it into a book: A Heap o' Livin' of a Family Man. Sorry, it is not for sale, since Mom is still living, and it's principally their amazing love story and their desire to create a family, tracing their separation just one month after marriage through his travels in WWII... not the sort of stuff readers would enjoy. :)

So, why am I telling you this? Just to let my readers know I am not idle, and that my dad’s persistence in writing eventually paid off, even posthumously. I would not say the book was that well written, but he did love to tell stories, and it contained some interesting ones which our family can now share. I gave copies to family members for Christmas.

The point is this: what legacy do we ALL leave, each in our own way? We are not all writers, but we all leave something of ourselves behind. Is it a legacy to be proud of? Is it one our family will cherish, or resent? Is it just "A Heap o' Livin'", or does it really lead somewhere? As we are all so busy, let’s remember that our works will live on, even if we don’t finish what we start! As we’ve heard it said, “It’s not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game.”

“Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord… their good works do follow them.” (Revelation 14:13)