“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies . . . Something your hand touched some way . . . It doesn't matter what you do, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away.” ― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

 I have his harmonica.  He saved his money as a boy and ordered it from a catalog.  Once he received it in the mail, he told me that he would spend his summer evenings outside learning to play it.  I remember as a child listening to him play as we would sit in the swing on the patio - he could play anything you asked him to.  When I was probably 10 or 11 years old I asked him to teach me how to play it, and he did.  After his sudden and unexpected death almost 13 years ago, his harmonica was the one thing I most wanted of his possessions.  It now resides in a curio cabinet in our dining room.  I see it often, and occasionally I will take it from its spot on that shelf and play it a little.  The smell, the feel of it on my lips, and the sounds that emanate from it take me back to a very sweet place.  That little harmonica - which is probably worth very little, if anything, by the world's standards - is priceless to me.  It is a piece of my daddy.

 I also have his telescope.  He loved nature, and knew all about the stars and planets.  I can remember riding in the car with him at night long before we had compasses built into our vehicles, and if he wasn't sure of the direction we were going, he would look up at the stars to orient himself.  And while most people who take an interest in space and desire to get a closer look through a telescope would go out and purchase one, not my daddy.  No, he built one.  He purchased a book (which I now have) titled "How to Make a Telescope," and that's exactly what he did.  And when I say he built it, I mean from the ground up.  The only things he purchased that were ready-made were the viewfinder he attached to the outside of the barrel, and the eye-pieces.  I still remember my mother's annoyance as he used her pristine kitchen to grind the lenses and make the mirrors.  After he completed it, I remember many evenings of standing on a footstool to look through the eyepiece at stars and planets he had brought into focus and up close for me.  And on the few occasions we would experience a solar eclipse, he would use his telescope to project the image quite largely onto our garage door as all of the neighborhood kids would gather to watch.  That telescope now occupies space in our garage.  And while others might find value in it as a novel item, it holds special value to me.  My daddy's hands made it - it is a piece of him.  And the memories I have associated with his telescope are precious to me.

Not only was Daddy skilled at building scientific projects like a telescope, but he was also an incredible woodworking craftsman.  I have a shelf he built for me that hangs in our living room, and I also have a rocking cradle he made for us before the girls were born.  He designed the plans, carved the wood, put it together, carved a decorative "S" into the headboard, and varnished it.  It is beautifully crafted, and a special piece of furniture to me because my daddy made it.  All three of our children slept there as infants, and we also put Lydia there on a few of her early visits.  It made me smile to know that my daddy's cradle, crafted by his hands, held his first great-grandchild.  I know he would've loved that.

As much as Daddy loved nature and creating things with his hands, his greatest passion was books - especially the Bible.  I can still see him sitting in the patio swing, or in colder months in his living room rocking chair, with an opened book in his hands.  I have many of the books that he once read and enjoyed, but my favorite is a copy of the Bible that he put together for his own study.  He divided the text into five categories, placed them in binders, and he would highlight and write profuse notes as he studied the text.  As a young adult, I would often call him if I was studying a difficult passage and had a question to get his thoughts.  That is one of the things I have missed most about him since his passing - there are still days that I just wish I could call my daddy.  But he really left me the next best thing - his thoughts about God's word, penciled in his own handwriting.  I'm currently teaching a class of young ladies on Paul's letter to the Romans, and my daddy helped me study yesterday.  As I read his words written in his familiar script, I can hear his voice.  I'm thankful to have that piece of him still with me.

He left other things behind as well.  Like the gardening and landscaping skills he had which still live on in my mother's yard.  Or the paintings he created that still hang in her living room.  Pieces of him that remain.  I'm thankful for those tangible elements that help him to live on in my life.  But what I'm most thankful for as we approach another Father's Day is what he took with him - a deep faith in God, which led to a life of service in His kingdom.  October 6, 2003 was the day he spent his whole life preparing for - the day of his death.  I have no doubt that my daddy lives today in God's presence.  And I know that when I join him there, I won't miss the treasured "pieces" of him I have here, because we will share eternity in a place where we've never been more whole.  What a blessing.  How thankful I am to serve such a God who gives such hope.  And how blessed I was to call Bob Meadows my daddy.

"One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters."  ~George Herbert