I Love to Tell the Story
My Daddy went to be with Jesus in December.
Because I spent nine years grieving in anticipation, as he slipped further into his dementia, losing him a little every day, I have been surprised by the enormity of the shock I feel now. I keep having moments of realization over and over, in the middle of otherwise ordinary days: My Daddy is dead. Forever. It’s the finality of it that arrests me.
I keep having to remind myself: his loss is still so fresh and recent, every time I am overcome by BIG, LOUD grief days and am surprised to find it hard to function well.
I have been living and writing and studying grief for five straight years. Part of me thinks I should be much better at this by now. But I also have to be gentle with myself and remember: this is it’s own loss, and every loss is different.
Maybe you could use some of those reminders today also?
But I came here to share a story with you today. It’s about the last day of my Daddy’s life on earth. It’s raw and personal and I haven’t been ready to share about these intimate moments until now.
12.3.25
We have been singing to and worshipping at the bedside of my Daddy for four days now. My mamma has been playing old, country, gospel hymns on YouTube, singing along in her beautifully off-key and off-tempoed voice.
Her worship is so pure.
She told me she did the same thing as my Mamaw – my dad’s mom – was dying of the same disease. A story I never knew, but felt certain my father found comfort in.
These songs, and this time, is so healing.
The presence of the Spirit and comfort of the Father so near, so tangible.
I notice all of these old songs are rich with language of going Home, rejoicing in Heaven, of a longing so palpable to leave this world and go on to the next. A steady and confident assurance of what comes after this life.
I sang every one of these songs as a child. In lacquered-oak-and-blue-fabric-covered pews. I can still hear David Simpson or Randy Moore’s voices leading us in the verses.
I grew tired of these songs, and their simple-lifed lyrics. I spent decades chasing loftier words and ideas. Only in the last few years – after discovering Carrie Underwood and Cece Winans’ albums which include some of these of antique hymns – have I felt myself being drawn back to them. In all the change and loss I’ve endured over the last five years, the familiarity of these lyrics has lodged a homecoming-like comfort in my soul.
As my Daddy neared the end on this Wednesday morning, we knew he was close:
His breaths short, shallow and labored, with long pauses in between.
His pulse weak.
His skin grey and cool to the touch…
I took over the singing. Mom and I sat on either side of him, and as we each held his hands and stroked his arms, I tearfully cried the words,
“Come home, come home.
Ye who are weary come ho-o-ome.
Softly and Tenderly Jesus is calling.
Calling ‘oh sinner, come home.’ “
I know this song is actually about choosing salvation, a place to belong in Jesus’s family. But I felt Jesus whispering those words to my daddy, who was so, so weary from his 9-year decline into dementia.
The song ended.
He took a few more gulps of air. Our eyes glued to his chest, expecting each one to be his last.
The Playlist moved to the next track, “I Love to Tell the Story”.
I love to tell the story!
‘Twill be my theme in glory
to tell the old, old story
of Jesus and His love.
I thought of how my Dad had told the story of God’s goodness and Love with his life so faithfully. And even now, as I sing these words back to him and we watched his chest go still.
Immediately after he was gone, the playlist rolled over to, “When we all get to Heaven”.
When we all get to heaven,
what a day of rejoicing that will be!
When we all see Jesus,
we’ll sing and shout the victory!
The remarkable part about all of this to me was it felt as if this Playlist was hand-selected, like an orchestrated film score for each of these moments as they were happening.
All the other days, we kept watching different video line ups. The same few over and over by The Gaither Brothers. This was the first time we had turned on this Alan Jackson playlist. I’ve never noticed this before, but there’s something about Alan Jackson’s tone and pitch that sounds so similar to my Daddy’s voice – the one I have spent a lifetime hearing sing these very words in church services – that it’s like my Daddy was singing along with us today.
Many of the songs were repeats of the ones we had been listening to, but many of these were not in the previous videos. It seems God sent someone to build this playlist on YouTube five years ago, just for us, just for this day.
And I have never felt more loved, held, and truly known.