“I am my father’s daughter. He has his mother’s eyes. I am the product of her sacrifice. I am the accumulation of the dreams of generations and their stories live in me like holy water. I am my father’s daughter. I have my grandma’s eyes. I am the product of their sacrifice.”
“My Father’s Daughter,” sung by Jewel; written by Lisa Carver and Jewel Kilcher
Jewel has a way of telling all of our stories with her songwriting. I fell hard for her years ago when I saw her live, and she continues to inspire, as with the lyrics quoted above. All of us are the accumulation of the dreams of generations.
My own father had a hard row to hoe as the old folks say, leaving home at a young age to join the Army and help provide for his 13 siblings while serving his country. No doubt he took a few glances back across broken wood fences, past the old slaughter house, farther still to the little house that sheltered him after his mama died with babies still left to tend. He left home feeling it was his only way to make a better life for his family. I honor him for it. I get chills when I tell his simple story.
He told me about having to say goodbye to his baby brothers and sisters, waving from the dirt road with tear-stained eyes as they grew smaller and smaller until out of his sight — never out of his heart. Not long after he left, my grandpa had a new pickup truck and my aunts and uncles wore store-bought clothes purchased with the checks Daddy sent home. My grandma, whose eyes he had and would later pass to me, would have been proud of his sacrifice.
Miles away in an adjoining county, a high school sophomore was burdened with hard choices of her own. The one choice she never spoke of with regret was leaving high school to be her dying mother’s nurse. It was a memory she recalled full of honor and sadness. I cannot fathom losing the gravity that is a mother at such a tender age, but she kept her memory bright with stories. When my mama was dying a few years ago at age 74 and we were all doing everything humanly possible to care for her, she wept like a little girl in my arms. All those years later, she broke my heart into a million pieces by saying, “I wish mama was here to take care of me.”
Perhaps it’s my grandma’s eyes I inherited. Nonetheless, I use them to see deeper into the soul of all those stories left behind by my parents, from porch swing tete-a-tetes with Mama to rides in Daddy’s lap on his old tractor.
Truer than ever, their stories live in me like holy water. They live as long as I do, and hopefully longer.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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