Write down some of your stories. Make a scrap book so we can know who all these people are. Here is a box to organize your things. I had lots of good ideas for saving the stories my dad told. I wish I had recorded them. Maybe I can remember them and record them myself. It won't be the same but the stories would be saved.
Dad started forgetting things that happened recently and mixed up things that did happen with things he worried would happen. But I could get him to remember stories from his childhood. Some were funny, like the one about the relative who brought a plucked chicken for my grandmother to cook for him because he was feuding with his regular cook.
Some stories made me see why dad was constantly working on something outside. He started working at the age of four picking cotton for his grandfather. His sly old grandfather would pay little Dennis in the candy section of his country store. Knowing dad's sweet tooth, I am sure dad wound up being paid in candy.
Dad loved talking to people and that served him very well in his work life. He didn't really understand my standoffish ways. He was smart with numbers and liked to travel. He was good at fixing mechanical things.
On the other hand he was accident prone. Maybe because he was often in a hurry to get things done. One Christmas memory was when dad was going to help Emily get her doll out of the packaging. He took out his handy, always present, pocket knife and proceeded to cut the plastic strip and a large gash in his hand. That resulted in dad and Martin spending hours in the hospital emergency room on Christmas day.
I wish I had written down or recorded his memories. I am sad he is gone but in some ways he has been gone for months. We didn't want him to linger on and suffer. As much as I hate to say good bye, it was time let my sweet daddy go home.
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