STORIES FROM THE STEPS, VOLUME 1, CHRONICLE 43, TUESDAY GIFTS FROM GRANDADDY:

“…It’s not what you got, it’s what you give, it’s not the life you choose,. it’s the life you live..”
~Tesla~ “What You Give “

On this day in 2002, after 93 ½ years, the man representing the oldest of 4 generations sharing a last name, reunited with the woman he described, without one hint of misogyny, as his “tough ol’ broad”. He was ahead of the curve in empowering women & their union fell only 9 days short of 73 years, the last few tested, as dementia took hold of my grandmother & he held to those better or worse vows when she didn’t know who he was but he cared for because he knew who she was. The other four of us, following in his decidedly non-misogynistic footsteps, found ours & he left us more than how to find an eternal shotgun rider. As I entered the building industry, he gave me two books, one on architecture & one of collected college level math correspondence courses from the University of Chicago & Georgia Tech that he used to build on his 8th grade education earned on the Kansas plains to advance from plasterers apprentice to construction superintendent & to design & construct his own home. And then, the most treasured, his Bible. Each chapter, noted with pen or pencil in his later years, how many times, unaided by a church wide effort, an app, or an accountability group, he read each chapter. In the ignorance & bulletproof attitude of youth that carried much too far into adulthood, I failed to grasp so many lessons offered over the shared experience of snapping beans & a plug of chewing tobacco on his back porch or over coffee & a newspaper at his kitchen table. Not until January 2013, when Isaiah 43:2 & that part about going through a fire became an all too real experience, did I understand the greatest truth. The truth revealed every Sunday as my tribe of 9 spread across 4 generations worship under the same roof, the truth that “if your Bible’s falling apart, you’re probably not”…