In Memoriam

Last week my great uncle, Lewis C. Tatham II, passed away at the age of 87.

He was born in 1925, two years after my grandmother.  In 1929, their mother died of virulent pneumonia, and Lew and my grandmother were raised by their grandparents.  The teetotalling Baptists.

Unlike my grandmother, Lew soured on the whole poverty and restrictive religion thing.  Sinclair Lewis was his Great Awakening.  The Army was his ticket out.

He found himself parked on a ship off Japan in 1945 waiting for the order to invade Tokyo.  Knowing when they went in, they would almost certainly all die.  Instead, the bombs dropped.  Japan surrendered.

Lew came home, got himself a PhD and tenure, and spent his career teaching English at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee.  By all accounts he was one of those teachers that changed lives.  When we visited him last August, sixteen years after he retired, letters from former students to "Dr. T." were regularly showing up in his mailbox.

He was achingly handsome.  (Just ask my Aunt Gerry.) 

He was frighteningly up to date on politics, religion, opera, current events, history, literature, and the storyline of Breaking Bad; he knew more about everything than anyone else, yet was utterly unpretentious, and genuinely interested in other peoples' thoughts on the topic at hand. 

His bookshelf was full of juxtapositions like Tennyson's Sonnets next to Sh!t My Dad Says next to an Italian/English dictionary.  He kept - and listened to - a copy of my senior recital.

He was a gifted and award-winning amateur actor, perhaps most proud of his Lear, a role he put off until he figured he was old enough to carry it off.

Toward the end, in one of the most generous, compassionate acts in his generous, compassionate life, he told my grandmother he'd made peace with God.  Which he had, although not in the way she thought he meant.  He gave her the comfort she needed while remaining honest with and true to himself.

He was a grand person, a true role model. 

I miss him.