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Joyce Scarbrough
Wisdom Member
Post Number:
910
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 07:55 am: |   |
Thank you everyone for the prayers and personal messages you sent my family and me while we cared for my daddy in his last days. Your kind words truly helped me feel a little better and helped me make it through. Lee Ann sang like the angel she is at the funeral yesterday, and I was reminded again of what a blessing God gave me when he sent her to me in 2003.
This is a small tribute I wrote about my daddy that my husband read for me at the funeral, and I wanted to share it with you so you'd get an idea of what kind of man he was, and why I'll miss him terribly every day.
Arnold Randolph Sterling Sr.
Feb. 14, 1923 - Sept. 4, 2006
My daddy was liked by everyone who ever knew him. Never would you call him that you weren’t greeted by the most cheerful “hello” you’d ever heard, and he had a joke for every situation. He even had the ambulance attendants and ER personnel at the hospital laughing when they took him in two weeks ago. My sister, my brother and I got a call from him every night with a detailed weather forecast for the next day, any new jokes featured in Reader’s Digest, and some bit of trivia or obscure news item we could “tell all the girls on coffee break.”
A lifelong lover of music and talented guitarist whose father taught him to play at the age of six, my daddy filled our house every Sunday with Dixieland jazz, cowboy trail songs, gospel hymns, country songs, folk music, and rock-n-roll. He passed on this appreciation for all types of music to his children and grandchildren, and we all know the words to songs from as far back as the 30s. As recently as last month, he served as the “disc jockey” for the senior citizens at his apartment complex, and he had a vast collection of music that he’d painstakingly recorded onto cassette tapes in different categories to fit whatever occasion they were celebrating.
Although he didn’t attend church, he was a devout Christian who’d read the Bible from cover-to-cover many times, and he taught us about God through Bible stories he retold in his own words, modern parables he made up himself, and family games like Bible drills and memorizing verses, but our best lesson was the example he set for us because of the kind of man he was.
Born with one of the softest hearts in the world, he loved animals of all kinds, all the way down to the smallest of creatures. I remember him telling me when I was little about the colony of sugar ants on one of the piers at the Alabama State Docks that he fed every day on his lunch hour. He’d come home every night and tell me what kind of foods they liked and which ones they hadn’t cared for, and every Sunday afternoon I would sit in his lap and watch “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom” and learn about animals right along with him. This love and respect for all God’s creatures and exceptionally soft heart is another legacy he passed on to his children and grandchildren. My brother carries birdseed in his car to feed hungry birds in parking lots, and my 17-year-old daughter is a vegetarian as a personal statement against the cruel treatment of animals.
Generous to a fault, my daddy was always giving things away, and he loved giving gifts and treats. When my sister and I were little, he would come home from work with candy or cookies hidden in his coat pockets, and whichever one we found first was the one we got to eat. Before he stopped driving, he loved going to yard sales and buying knick-knacks and odd items like singing coin banks and fiber optic flower arrangements for everyone in the family, and he’d always say they were practically “brand spanking new.” He gladly spent all his extra money on his grandchildren, and never did they go to see him that he didn’t have them some kind of snack. Never also was there ever a Paw Paw loved more by his grandchildren, no matter how old or how young they are.
My daddy taught my siblings and me many things as we were growing up. He taught me how to tie my shoes, how to count in Japanese, how to draw a boy and a dog out of the letters in the words, how to do string tricks and play clock solitaire, how to be patient, how to tell right from wrong, and how to live by the Golden Rule. But the most important thing he taught me was how to recognize a good man, because he was the finest one I’ve ever known.
~Joyce Sterling Scarbrough
True Blue Forever
ISBN 0-9722385-9-X
Different Roads
ISBN 0-9722385-3-0
Authors Ink Books
http://www.authorsinkbooks.com
Read the first chapters at http://www.authorsden.com/joycelscarbrough1
Waste time on Joyce's Blog at http://joycescarbrough.blogspot.com
Senior Editor
Champagne Books
http://www.champagnebooks.com |
Nancy Mehl
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number:
2557
Registered: 08-2001
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 08:24 am: | |
Joyce,
That is one of the most beautiful tributes I've ever read.
Thank you for sharing your father with us.
Nancy
MINDSIGHT MODERATOR
Look for "In the Dead of Winter" from Barbour Books
March 2007
www.nancymehl.com
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Bill Nelson
Unity Member
Post Number:
2295
Registered: 10-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 10:00 am: | |
Joyce,
He sounds like the kind of man I would like to have known. The world needs more like that. Time will ease your sense of loss, but I'm sure he will be missed. |
Sean D. Schaffer
Hunger Member
Post Number:
78
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 09:59 pm: | |
Your father sounds like a cool man, Joyce. He must have been a joy to be around.
http://seandschaffer.blogspot.com/ |
Stephen Lodge
Wandering Member
Post Number:
246
Registered: 06-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, September 08, 2006 - 05:05 am: | |
My heart is with you, Joyce - May he rest in peace.
http://stephenlodge.com
Novels by Stephen Lodge:
"Charley Sunday's Texas Outfit!"
"Nickel-Plated Dream"
"Shadows of Eagles"
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