It was just a matter of time. Time that marches on inexorably towards the end of our human lives. I praise God that I know where I'm going when I draw my last breath here on earth. But it's still strange to contemplate becoming the oldest generation with the passing of your grandparents and then parents.
My father, Billy Ray Griffin, passed away yesterday on May 11. He was born in 1941, the youngest of seven children, to parents who were well into mid-life. I never knew his parents because both passed away in their mid 60s before I was born. My sister and I lived with my mother after our parents divorced in the late 1970s. I won't bore you with the details, but we didn't have the best relationship with our dad. A product of his generation, he had very specific ideas about race, religion and politics.
I do have some fun memories from my growing up days with Bill. I always felt it was a very conditional love on his part, and yet I do believe it was love. Once I became an adult, married and started my own family, we drifted apart due to some decisions my father made that I didn't agree with. And didn't want to influence my girls in a negative way. And so it's a bittersweet thing to learn of his death. I don't mourn so much for my father, but rather the relationship that my family and particularly our daughters might have had with him if things had been different. If he had chosen to respond when I reached out to him years ago instead of ignoring it.
God sent me a wonderful father-in-law that I love and our girls think hung the moon. He has been the best Poppy to them all their lives, and I thank the Lord for providing them with an amazing male role model who raised a fabulous son, their dad.
Today I pray my father's soul is at peace in heaven because he accepted Jesus Christ as his personal savior.
With love, Tookin' Tootie
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