Memories rippling through time keeps loved ones near

Our oldest grand Zak arrived 28 years ago with a distinct red tint in his hair — that has since descended to his full red beard.

He's an Alaskan man — raised there, with a foray out of state — and eventually drawn back.  It is not surprising he was camping over the Fourth of July with his wife and toddler in a primitive site on spectacular Kenai Lake.

What is surprising, and why, is that he used FaceTime via satellite to call me.  I could see him at the lake's edge with Ariana — its surface still and smooth beneath a gray sky.  She was tossing rocks and he was skipping them.  He knows I like to skip rocks and he thought of me. 

It is that simple.  We have skipped rocks together at Priest Lake — I in awe of his parade of rings across the water.  He remembered that — and called.  And it was the best part of my Fourth of July.

For what things am I remembered?  I create a parade of rings with my life for others to remember me fondly, and perhaps even be guided in some way.  Remembrances can easily fall in the other direction, as well.  Which is why it is worth considering this question, and directing it toward the plus side, at any age.

The welcoming things that stay with others can be every day ordinary.  But they matter because they are the ripples of who I am—connections that touch them.  That keep me with them—even in the Alaskan wilderness.

This grand man — when I mentioned the bullfrogs I hear day and night — told me from his rocky lake shore, “That's just the kind of wild sound I like.”  And I remembered when he was ten — and called me on a dark winter morning to the end of the drive where he was waiting for his school bus — so I could hear the owl hooting.  I have this beautiful ripple now of wild sounds bringing the presence of Zak.

I can be anywhere on the road and think of my husband Terry when I see a motorcycle.  Though he can no longer manage a bike, his black cherry pearl Harley was his signature ride for a season.  I think the time he told me that to be on it out on the open road “set his spirit free” — is when his bike and him were impressed as one in my mind.

I have a friend who makes stellar brownies so good that anytime we get together for a meal, she brings them by request.  And because word has gotten out, she now bakes two pans so that we have plenty to share.  Baking them is one remembrance of her, but those deluxe double pans will always be the thing that seals who she is.

I can't count how many times Terry and I have sung the “birthday song” to our kids and grandkids.  With four children and twenty grands—and now two greats—times all their ages, it swells into the hundreds.  When we called a 15-year-old grand in April to sing he said, “It never gets old.”  Our annual duet is a visceral acknowledgment for them that they are loved and remembered — and that long after we are gone, we will be with them every year on their birthday.

Sometimes without knowing — sometimes intentionally — I am making a parade of rings in the lives of others.  How wide and far will my ripples go. 

Carol Shirk Knapp is the author of The Preacher's Kid column.