This past Thursday, a couple of hundred folks gathered in Savannah’s chapel to remember someone—or several someones—they lost during the year.  Our Commerative Tree was magnificent and a collective gasp rose from those in attendance when it was lit.  There was the opportunity to laugh and the freedom to cry and a lot of both taking place during the service, compliments of our speaker who did a wonderful job reminding us that we have a very important task in this life.

She set the stage for that reminder by relating a conversation she had with a young couple.  The husband had been diagnosed with what proved to be a terminal illness and, in the course of their discourse, she asked him about his greatest fear.  Without hesitation he responded, “That my son won’t remember me.”  His son was fifteen months old.

With a calming reassurance she told him, “Oh, but he will.  We will see to it that he does.”  And today, that is the point on which I wish to dwell.

The reason my children know very little about their Great-grandfather Rogers is because I never knew him and his name was rarely mentioned as I was growing up.  He died the year before my parents married, the result of a heavy equipment accident while building dams for TVA.  That and the fact that he had 23 or 24 brothers and sisters is really all I know of him.  It’s difficult to share a story you’ve never heard.  But the reason they know so much about their Great-grandfather Shackelford is because I grew up with him and I have spoken of him often.  They know the story of his life, of his accomplishments and the things he enjoyed.  They know how much loss he suffered and how he persevered.  And they know his face for there are pictures of him in our home.  To the best of my knowledge, there is one picture of my Grandfather Rogers and it is currently residing in what was once my bedroom in what was once my parents’ apartment.  Since my mother chose not to share his life with me, I will never be able to share it with my children and they will never be able to share it with theirs.

We are the keepers of our history, the guardians of our heritage.  We have a sacred duty to tell the stories of our ancestors, for they created many of the traditions we celebrate during this season and throughout the year.  When we fail to do that then we allow their memories to die with them and, eventually, we lose a significant part of our past.  There is no longer anything that connects us to who we are and how we arrived at this point in time. Oh, there are ways to uncover that history, but it isn’t the same as hearing the stories as they are passed from generation to generation.

This is the time of year when we tend to reflect more deeply on those who are no longer with us.  I hope, as you think of their lives, you will share their story with those who surround you now.  We are the link between past and present, and we have a sacred duty to not only preserve that link but to prepare our descendants to do the same—for as long as we remember, those who came before us will never truly die.

The post A Sacred Trust appeared first on Shackelford Funeral Directors | Blog.