Being My Daddy's Daughter

This is what I wrote and read at my daddy's funeral.

There are a million thoughts running through my head right now as I sit here and try to type this. I want so much to put just the perfect sentiment together to let you know about my daddy, but then I think, Wait, every single person sitting here today is here because they knew him. It is obvious everyone knows what an utterly remarkable, paragon, legend of a man he was.

Each of you, I am sure has a multitude of stories you could and hopefully are sharing with each other about how Charles Graham touched your lives. Some of you here today knew Coach Graham. I never knew him outright. I know he coached me a lot in life lessons, but I never got the privilege of seeing him standing on a sideline wringing that poor, defenseless towel around his neck into something that better resembled a string of dental floss than a hand towel, but boy have I heard those stories.

Others of you here knew Mr. Graham the principal. Yet again I never got the first hand experience of him being my principal, but so many of you have shared your experiences with me. I know many of the teachers in this room today credit him for making them the educators they were and are. From your stories, I know he was the kind of principal who stood behind his teachers 100%. He knew what was going on in his school. He didn't have to be in your classroom to know what was going on in your classroom in fine detail.I have heard the tales of the people in this room who were his students about how when Mr. Graham came walking down the hall, the students stepped to the side, how even years after they graduated if Mr. Graham came in the room, they put out their cigarettes because they knew he didn't care for smoking. Even yesterday, sitting at our house, a former student called and said Mr. Graham was the greatest man he ever knew.

Probably a few more people in here knew Mr. Charlie. Now, Mr. Charlie, he was different than Coach Graham and Mr. Graham. Mr. Charlie you see was a foxhunter. Let me rephrase that. He was not a foxhunter, he was the foxhunter. Fox hunting was Mr. Charlie's passion. Mr. Charlie would sit under the shed at the fox pen holding court, telling the same stories for about the millionth time. Aren't you all thankful he knew how to tell a good story? Honestly, I never understood his love of fox hunting. I don't think I ever will, but I do know the joy it brought him, and for that I am thankful. I am also thankful for the people in this sport who looked up to him and until his final days looked after him like family.

My brother-cousin, Jerry, just the other day told me a story about him and his Uncle Charles sitting in Chuckie's in Pamplico eating lunch. He said as they sat there almost everyone in the restaurant came up and spoke to him. I don't remember it exactly, but a conversation developed that went something like this, "Uncle Charles, what does it feel like to have touched so many people?" To which he responded, "Well, I just know a lot of people. "Yes, Charles Graham did know a lot of people and a lot of people knew Coach Graham, Mr. Graham, Mr. Charlie, but there are only two of us who got to know and call him Daddy. I can't speak for my sister, well probably I can, but I want to tell you a bit about the man I got to call daddy.

There is a great quote from the movie Two Weeks Notice where Sandra Bullock's character is talking about her strong-willed, ever-motivating mother. She says, "For better or worse, she's the voice in my head, always pushing me to do better." When I first heard that quote and countless times since then it has reminded me of my Daddy. In some ways, two people could be no more different than the two of us. Daddy with his strong, quite leadership sitting down somewhere wisely watching and taking in all the goings-on of the world, me with my glittery, sparkly, boundless energy pouring out of every ounce of my being. Yeah, there were times, like every daughter, I know, I didn't think he understood me, and I am sure there were times he didn't.

There were countless conversations that included comments like, " Regina , I don't know why you spend so much time watching stuff about made-up people's lives. Isn't yours enough to keep up with because mine is."

" Regina , I don't know why you have to make such a mess to do anything."

" Regina , every night when I go to sleep the first thing I pray for is for you to learn responsibility."

Yes, our differences were endless. But as I grew up, I think there started to be more similarities, and I know now that both of us saw that. Over the years, that voice in my head growing louder and louder was Daddy's voice. He was guiding me to be better, and eventually all his lessons, all his preaching to me during “Daddy talks” in the living room began to pay off.I can't even begin to tell you the things he taught me or just gave me without trying.

My daddy gave me the ability to wake up any morning at whatever time I wanted to without an alarm clock. I would like to say that comes complete with his ability to never be late, but I am not that good. I may have the smallest tendency to be late sometimes, but it is never because I didn't get up on time.

My daddy taught me great lessons like, "Offense sells tickets…defense wins games," as we sat watching our umpteenth dozen sporting event together. I never played any quote real sports, because much to my coaching father's chagrin, I was more into being the evil, dreaded cheerleader, but that didn't stop us from sports being one of our greatest bonds. We would watch games on tv and he would answer every single one of my annoying questions about what was going, "Daddy what is offsides? What is illegal motion? What is 3rd and 7? What is a 4-6-3 double play? What is a double-double?" I know I was driving him crazy, but he answered every question patiently until I understood every sport, well at least the ones that count anyway.

My daddy taught me to always work hard and give my best every single time I did something and my name was on it. This lesson took a long time to seep into my hard head, which is also a gift from him, but when it did it stuck, and now I tend to drive other people crazy with how much detail I go into about any task I am given.

My daddy taught me dignity, kindness, and fairness. He taught me to respect everyone regardless of whatever cards life dealt them. I remember once in first grade there was a girl in my class whose father was a custodian at the high school. She told me one day, "Your daddy is my daddy's boss." The saying stuck with me because as a seven year old I just like the rhythm and the way all the s's sounded. I went home and told daddy that. He stopped me quickly and said, " Regina , I am nobody's boss." I don't remember what followed that, but in essence what he was telling me and taught me that day was he nor anyone was better than or more important than anyone else.

Besides getting the occasional "bad" grade, the only thing I ever really got in trouble for was when daddy would hear me picking on other people for anything or talking badly of someone else. He always tried to teach me to see that everyone had circumstances different than mine that I could not understand and it was not fair for me to judge them by my merit of what was right or acceptable. I am not always the best at carrying out this lesson, but I know I try very hard to treat everyone as I would want to be treated or better.

I could go on and on about all the things my Daddy taught me, but I will not take up that much of your time, but I do want to leave you with one more lesson and maybe the biggest of them all. As I sit here trying to organize my thoughts I have skipped through and shuffled around a lot of Daddy lessons, but when it comes down to it, the one I think is the most important is strength.

My daddy taught me to be strong. He taught me to be proud of who I am and to never do anything I am embarrassed of or couldn't talk about. I think that is part of being strong because doing those things or not doing those things takes strength of conviction to stand up for who you are and what you think is right. When I was a teenager Daddy and I were in the truck going somewhere, and he told me a story about when he was a kid. He had spent the day working in tobacco and decided to take a break by laying down in the field for a while. He said as he laid there he began to think about his life and what he wanted from it. The details of those decisions aren't really important at this point, but the thing he wanted me to remember most was simple. He said, "Regina, you are going to be getting into situations where you are going to have to make some hard choices, and if it comes down to making the right or wrong choice on the spur of the moment with all your friends around you are very rarely going to make the right one, so you need to take some time, go find somewhere quiet and think about what you want from life. Make the hard choices when you aren't in the situation, and it will be much easier for you to be strong and stay true to who you are when a difficult situation arises." Honestly, I don't think I paid too much conscious attention to that story that day, but I must have because I think I did, at some point, have that conversation with myself because here I am all these years later, and I remember the story like it was yesterday.

For a long time, I didn't know if I could ever live up to my daddy's legendary strength to handle practically any situation, and I wasn't sure if he thought that either. As I know the family knows, and maybe many of you do as well, compliments were never very high on my daddy's list of things to dish out. I like to think he thought if he praised you too much you would become complacent and quit working hard and giving your best, but every now and then you would come across a third person and he or she would say, " Regina , your daddy talks about you all the time and how proud he is of you." I didn't think anything could make me feel any better than that until about a year and a half ago.

Daddy and I were sitting in the den having an in-and-out-conversation about some stuff, probably watching a ball game, that or Nancy Grace yell nonsensically at the world, and he said, "Regina, you know I used to pray for you all the time to learn responsibility, and I think you have." Well, I didn't really know what to say. I had never really received such verbal praise from this father of mine. I was dumbfounded and didn't really think I could get too much more so, until he continued and said, "and you know, I think you're a lot like me. You are strong. I know I don't have to worry about you and you will be okay."Of all the things he has ever given me that was the greatest gift of all of them.Those words and that day will forever be one of the proudest moments of my life.

I would like to conclude with a quote by Jackie Robinson, which I think is so appropriate on so many levels. Jackie said, "A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives." If that is the case, then I think it is evident that no matter what you call him, Coach Graham, Mr. Graham, Mr. Charlie, Uncle Charles, Granddaddy Charles, or Daddy, this man we are celebrating today was important, and it is my greatest hope that right now my daddy is sitting in a recliner somewhere, just getting home from having won the biggest hunt of his life, listening to Mama and Mrs. Jessie fuss over him needing to eat something, watching his Gamecocks finally win a national championship because I know that is, without a doubt, his heaven.