My parents, William Scott and Ruth Anne (Meyer) Kenan at my sister Julie's wedding.
Thank you all for honoring the memory of my father,
today.
I cannot be here in person, so first my heart goes
out to my mother, and to my sister Jane who has been such a big help and will
remain near Mom. I also thank Mike and Julie, and the many friends and
neighbors who have all been able to help in ways I have not. And, I thank Dad
for showing me the value of persistence and determination, which have been my
own saving graces.
I have reflected on my father in many ways, but
the story I’d like to tell is from very long ago – years before Dad and I ever met,
and I want to thank Judy Russ Whitney, my cousin, for telling the most
important part to me. It rang a bell then, so maybe Dad or Aunt Doris told it
years ago, too.
Back in the 1920s, before the Great Depression
hit, my grandmother died, Grandpa’s cotton and tobacco barns burned, and my
grandfather did not have the wherewithal to cope. He took to drink and many
enterprises that failed, they having to move once or more per year – within
Wilmington and surrounding areas.
Dad told me that he and his younger sister Doris
were virtual orphans, and when in the country, often cared for by old black
share-cropping women, their walls papered with the colored Sunday funnies. Some
of Dad’s stories to us kids came from those women.
And at that same time, the prominent distant Kenan
relatives had become some of the wealthiest people on earth, riding the same
Wilmington streets in Norma Desmond limousines, while my grandfather’s family
were lucky to have shoes – which they sometimes did not.
At the age most children today begin kindergarten,
Dad took on the responsibility of raising both himself and Doris, and – ALWAYS
the optimist and “can-do-it” guy -- Dad made up songs to cheer little Doris and
distract them from their plight.
Is there ANY activity in life more
important than to find God in our hearts and create out of thin air a home, a
place of Peace and Security, to share with those we love and seek to protect?
Dad had a life-long love of music and dancing – he
and Mom won many Jitterbug contests when I was grooving to Rock and Roll -- and
they tried in vain to teach me those steps. I’ve never felt more like a klutz.
When I think of Dad, now, I see him dancing and
singing -- having discarded his worn-out old body – showing off as he waits for my
mother to sachet in beside him, so they can WOW the Heavenly Hosts.
But not yet . . . not yet . . .
Thank you.
.
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