"The glory of young men is their strength, but the splendor of old men is their gray hair" (Proverbs 20:29).
Often in my life, to the displeasure of my wife and those closest to me, I have felt a great responsibility to those of the past. My wife is fond of telling me I spend more time with the dead than the living. But if not for the dead, we would not live. I am a creature born of those whose heartbeats throbbed with the same life as mine yet melded into an unbroken line to my existence. I once held the hands of many of those who now lie cold in a grave. The vision I sought from their eyes has lost its luster because of the time-honored tradition of the mortal decay of the human body, a certainty we all face, no matter our station in life. My goal is to restore that vision for those yet to come. Because without these very ancestors, we would have no memories. Our minds would not be our own. Without their lives, ours would not be. It's simple. We owe them our lives. The least we can do is remember them, if only for the opportunity to write about them and the times they lived.
The author-Dallas Reese August 2023 Hilton Head SC
An example I often use in my own life is the untimely death of my Great-Grandfather Robert Walter Reese's first wife, Octavia Womack Reese. She died in 1899, only a month after the birth of her last child, Alice Octavia Reese. In an ironic twist, the midwife for Alice's birth, Arie Tallent, ends up marrying Robert Walter Reese a year later—the backstory; Arie had been friends with Octavia Womack Reese and had also been the midwife and assisted in the birth of several of her other children. When these two women were friends, they probably never imagined the future and the outcome. Because of Octavia's death and Arie's subsequent marriage to my Great Grandfather, Robert Walter Reese, the birth of my Grandfather, Robert Lee Reese Sr., was possible in 1902. Had Octavia not died, I might not be here. Of course, thousands of other things could have happened to alter the outcome of the future; this single event had a significant impact on many people. My Great Grandfather Robert Walter Reese had seven kids with Octavia, but he also went on to have seven kids with Arie. And the descendants of both of these wives are of a great multitude. So many people would not be here but for the early death of Octavia and, more importantly, the friendship of these two women in the small mountain town of Highlands, North Carolina, in the 1890s. It's remarkable to think this one occurrence combined with so many others, altered the course of human existence for so many descendants. I have many other examples of our ancestors' importance, but this is just one small microcosm of the overall picture.
And so I write. I write about the people, the places, the events, love, loss, hardships, difficulties, wars, famines, feasts, sufferers, the privileged, and the poor. The scars and successes of my family's human experience brought me to this world. All of the lives of my direct line have been a part of the tapestry woven into the fabric of my life and the lives of my wife and children. It is the same feeling I have about my wife's family. In some way known only to God, her lineage tethered to mine in bringing forth the seven children we had together. Of course, the circumstances under which I met my wife could have been brought about by time and chance, as society would believe. But I think God had a hand in bringing us together. I couldn't explain to my kids what made me move to Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1993, but I did. It was near my hometown of Concord, but I had been living in Nashville, Tennessee, before that and fully intended on staying in Nashville for the rest of my life. Had I done that, I would have never met my wife.
And so we arrive at the place and time we now live. I sometimes ponder why God put me here in this age, the 20th and 21st centuries. I have seen many years behind me, wasted time, done some good, some bad, lived and learned, remembered, forgotten, lost and found, and still standing. In the words of singer/songwriter Paul Simon, "After all these years." It is a great joy to be alive in this day and age.
Challenges abound, though. The seeming decay of morals and rampant rage in today's society threatens to bring down the fabric of our social constructs. But it is our opportunity as citizens in this great land of the free and home of the brave to witness the love of Christ to others to dampen the blows of evil. I gather our collective ancestors had it no differently. They had problems, and when I think about how much more difficult their lives were, my peers and I have no right to complain. We can't imagine their hardships. We are now the benefactors of technology and advancements that no one could have imagined 100 years ago. Just as 100 years before that, no one could imagine traveling in an airplane, an automobile, a radio, a TV, and on and on.
So onward, I carry the torch for those whose voices are now silent. I won't let those ancestors' stories be lost. Instead, my responsibility is to take the stories of the past into the future so that our ancestors' songs may never end. I hope their melody and harmony sing eternally to those left behind until Christ sees us home, forever and ever. Amen.
Even to your old age, I am he,
and to gray hairs, I will carry you.
I have made, and I will bear;
I will take and will save.
Isaiah 46:4
Dallas Reese August 2023