A Legacy

Exodus 20:12 "Honor thy father and mother that thy days may be long on the land that the Lord thy God give thee." My cousin and I discussed this verse Thursday as she was the 5th person in 15 minutes to call me and let me know that my 93 year old grandfather had passed away. He lived a long happy life. She said he had to have been a good kid, he raised his kids (our parents) to honor their parents and he was blessed by his obedience. He died with family around, he died with babies around. That's how he lived, kids everywhere! If you have seen any of my cousins or aunts or uncle we all have swollen punkin faces with slits for eyes. And everyone that wears contacts probably had glasses on today. Makes it easier to wipe the tears that happen to start flowing at most in opportune times. I was talking to my cousin's son on our way back to Jackson last night and we were laughing about how many of us there are, kids, grand kids, great grand kids and even great-great grand kids...we are part of what could be known as a southern mafia family. We are not a financially wealthy family as a whole but when something affects one of us, it affects us all on a certain level. Carl Harchfield had 7 kids, he is survived by 3 daughters and 1 son. This is the man that my daddy lived with over the past 10 years. The man that would not let us put daddy into an assisted living facility 10 years ago because he said, as long as he was alive, "he would take care of the boy". My cousin skyped from China and he reminded us of several things that we could laugh about, things that formed us as we grew up. How do you know when a watermelon is ready to pick? Thump it...before picking it. Eating popcorn on newspaper. Tina the black poodle that was Daddy Carl's lap dog. We used to walk through the cemetery to go fish. I remember walking to the pond to fish and walking by his tombstone. As a child I was confused about why he and Mom Opal already had headstones in the cemetery but weren't dead. They paid for it as they had the money. I can remember riding home from church with him and Mom Opal from church with as many kids in the car that would fit. I remember learning the books of the Bible when I became a new Christian and I had to say them to him. I didn't know him as a boy growing up on Island 35, I didn't know him as a young married man or a young father or a young Christian. I knew him as my grandfather, as a Godly man, as a man the was a quiet man, but when something amused him, you couldn't understand him while he tried to tell you because he would get so tickled. I remember my grandmother doing most of the talking and him just sitting there. But when he did speak, it was something that needed to be heard. Mom Opal died 13 years ago. When she died, he told my cousin that this is the way it's supposed to be. He didn't want her to have to live with the pain he was going to have to live with living without her. He said he loved her more everyday, he loved her more the day she died than he did the day they married. I told Trevor, that's what I wanted, I wanted that marriage. Obviously times have changed, but the institution of marriage hasn't and I find myself wanting THAT marriage more. The harder I work to have that marriage, I realize the more I love my man and the harder I work. This cancer incident has proven to me marriage is work, but anything worth having is worth working hard for. I know that God has prepared me for this moment in my life, in my marriage. Daddy Carl was a sharecropper. He was a veteran and the father of 7. He believed he was the wealthiest man he knew...and he was. Not on a monetary scale, but he was a man loved by many. He loved over 60 grand kids and prayed for everyone of us. He was a man that showed Christ's love to every person that walked in the door of Beaver Baptist Church. If the door was open, he was there, in his pew. Before the church grew, when there were only 2 sides of the aisle, he and Mom Opal sat in the 5th pew back and the rest of the Harchfield's filled up the pews in front and back of his pew. On the other side of the church sat my other grandmother in the 2nd pew and everyone else in the church. He loved the church. He loved the body of Christ. He loved the man in the pulpit. He may not have always agreed with him, but he prayed for him. Every preacher over the past 50 years has eaten at Daddy Carl's kitchen table. When Mom Opal was alive, it was a fried chicken and spaghetti kinda Sunday lunch or chicken and dressing, not all lunches but the really good ones. As I look back over the past few days with my family as we mourn our loss of this great man, I also mourn the loss of how life used to be. I have lost sight of what I really am. I am a very wealthy woman, I am part of the legacy that Daddy Carl left. He set an example of prayer, hard-work, studying the Word of God and living according to that word. I can only pray that I have honored my father and my mother that my life will be long on the land the God has promised. I can pray that Daddy Carl's legacy will continue to live through me and that my children will reap his blessings.