Although
he accumulated many, I was his first and, therefore, forever favorite
grandchild. Being a generational Texan
family, all born in the East Texas-ish area, we were typically close (and did I
mention, yet again, that I’m a 5-Gen through both my maternal and paternal
branches?) We visited with each other for
entertainment, and went to my grandparents’ house on Christmas Day after an early
morning visit from Santa Claus.
(Incidentally, I believed in the fat jolly man until my 13th birthday
and still miss him.) With my Mom being
the oldest of seven siblings, by three minutes, and everyone bringing their specialty
cooking, we had plenty to eat. Southern
comfort food. OMGoodness. I still drool just thinking about homemade
sweet peach cobbler with a sugary crispy chewy gooey crust. Yummmmy.….
Anyway, Elmer “Lloyd” Dover led a pretty dramatic
life, although he probably didn’t think of it that way. He was a working man, a repairman for the
light company. His truck had a nifty plastic
water cooler near the tailgate with a built-in paper cup dispenser that my
cousin and I drained regularly, drinking cup after cup until it was empty, yet I
never remember Grandpa Dover fussing at us.
But, a haunting photograph from our family album shows a
twenty-something daddy with a 2-year-old on each knee, grieving over a gravesite. His beautiful young wife had left him with
twin baby daughters, one of whom became my Mom.
He did his best to nurture them with the help of relatives until meeting
the lady who would not only raise his girls but also bear him five more
children over the next 17 years. So, the
twins having said “I do” to their respective husbands in a huge dual wedding ceremony
as 19-year-olds, Grandpa Dover oversaw the arrival of his last daughter, as
well as his first two granddaughters, within a year. Little girls became his way of life, and he
doted on us as we hero worshipped him (and his light company truck water
cooler.)
The
drama in Grandpa Dover’s life took another turn when he became a patient of Dr.
Denton Cooley, the renowned trail-blazing heart surgeon who performed one of his
first quadruple bypasses on Grandpa. Of
course, Dr. Cooley called him Lloyd, not Grandpa. Plagued with early heart disease and still responsible
for young offspring, he was the perfect candidate and a tremendous
success. His large family was ecstatic
when he recovered and returned home, hopefully to live for many more
years. But, another car hit his truck broadside,
and in an instant, Grandpa Dover was gone.
He didn’t even live
to see my graduation from high school, so I have few but fond memories. However, my Grandfather’s greatest impact on me
was one he surely did not plan, and one I knew nothing about until adulthood. I remember Grandpa Dover was the Choir Leader
in our church, that he sang beautifully and inspired others to use their
musical talents. It was decades after
his passing that an aunt gave me a copy of hymns he actually composed which would
reach into my soul with a song he wrote about the perils of putting career before
religion. At the time, I was a harried
young lady lawyer bent on proving myself with overachievement, and his prose went
straight to my heart. The stanza “…When you’re
weighed in the balance, what then?” speaks to me like no self-help book ever will. Grandpa Dover didn't write those words for
me, but I believe one of his purposes on earth was to influence people over
time, including his descendants. And his
legacy of music has done just that for this granddaughter.
