Epilogue

"Tim? Sarah? Could you two come in here for a minute?" Naomi called.

"What is it, Mom?" Sarah asked, coming into the living room. It was Sunday. They'd be leaving tomorrow.

"Wait for your brother. Tim?"

The door to the study opened and Tim came out. If his guilt and grief had ebbed, he still was mourning and no one would deny his right to do so. It was just that it showed so glaringly in his eyes.

"Yeah, Mom?"

"Can you come in here?"

"Sure."

"You two all packed?"

"Mostly," Sarah said and then hesitated. "Mom?"

"What?"

"Will you be okay? Here? By yourself?"

Naomi smiled. "Are you two worried?"

"We just don't want you to be lonely," Tim said.

"I won't be. Melissa has decided that I need looking after and told me in no uncertain terms that I would be meeting her for lunch every day. ...and I'll find other things to fill my day until I can get a job. Don't worry about me. That wasn't what I called you in here for."

"Then what?"

"Your father and I...we were going to wait until Christmas, but...well, I don't see any reason to wait now. I think you'll appreciate having them." She held out two books.

"What is this?" Tim asked.

"My Life in Quotations?" Sarah read.

"By Sam McGee?" Tim said. "Dad wrote a book?"

"Is it an anthology?"

"Not exactly. It's more like a combination of his memoirs, a kind of autobiography, and a collection of quotable quotes."

"When did he start writing this?" Sarah asked. "I didn't know anything about it. Did you, Tim?"

"Not until this moment."

"Apparently, he'd been working on it for years...on the sly," Naomi said. "He didn't say a word about it to me...not until last year."

Tim opened it up and began scanning through the contents.

"When last year?"

"At the same time they found those clots in his legs and he made me help him plan his funeral. He was working on the proofs at the time and wanted me to look over them, too. I asked him why he was publishing a book on his life when his life wasn't over yet."

"What did he say?" Sarah asked.

"He said that with you turning twenty-one and both of you out of the house, it had severely cut down on the number of quotations he used in his daily life."

"What about when we got married or something special like that?"

"I asked him, and he said that would be in volume two...A Grandpa's Life in Quotations."

Sarah laughed.

"The publisher sent these copies in advance, but I'm going to see about getting a note added that Sam has died. It will delay its release...but I think it's worth it."

Tim was silent as he skimmed through various parts of the book. Then, he stopped on a page and began to read, surprise on his face.

"What is it, Tim?"

"How in the world did he even remember our first quote war?" Tim asked, his voice thick but he was almost smiling.

"You know your father. He had a mind for them. Actually, I think he wrote them down whenever you left," Naomi said with a smile of her own.

"He has the poems he made me learn," Sarah said, laughing. "Even Shel Silverstein! Look, Tim. It's in the chapter called 'How to torture your child in three easy steps'."

Tim flipped back to the page and laughed. "The one about sucking your thumb...and 'My Beard'."

"Read the preface," Naomi said. "Tim, read aloud."

Tim turned to the opening pages and began to read. "'This is neither strictly a memoir nor an anthology. It is a recounting of a family's life. Not that the end of this book is the end of the family but that the end is an opening for more. You, the reader, will find a lot of humor in these pages, but that is not all it is because a family is not only happy. There are moments of sadness, moments of anger, but always a family.'" Tim put his arm around Sarah's shoulders and continued to read. "'It begins with my introduction to the wonderful world of quotations and ends when my daughter turned twenty-one.

'When I was in college, I read two quotations by famous people. The first was by Ralph Waldo Emerson. He is reported to have said, 'I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.' The second is by Winston Churchill who said, 'It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. The quotations, when engraved upon the memory, give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more.' Well, I knew with whom I agreed. Thus began my love of quotations. I bought an anthology and began to read them. It was a pleasant surprise to me that I could remember them easily. It seemed that someone had said something which related to every moment of my life. Just ask my wife how successful my use of quotations was in our courtship. She didn't marry me for my good looks. If you're trying to woo a young lady, memorize the words of Victor Hugo when he said, 'What I feel for you seems less of earth and more of a cloudless heaven.' Then, see if she does not melt in your arms. ...as my wife melted in mine.'"

Naomi laughed and moved over to the couch to sit beside her children.

"'This book is organized into the following chapters: my introduction to quotes and my first fumbling attempts to use them, my courtship of my wife, my service in the Navy, my marriage, my retirement from the Navy, torturing my children...one at a time, the quote wars, the hard times, children leaving home...again, one at a time, love in the family.

"'I hope my family will forgive me a moment of sentimentality before I begin the book in earnest. An acknowledgments page would not be enough for me to express my gratitude at having my family with me. They have been life to me. Naomi is the air I breathe every day and reminds me of how much I have in this life. Sarah is the daughter who came to us as an unexpected blessing which we received gratefully, a sign that there is always more good in the world. Timothy is our son who never did what we expected but whose devotion to his friends is only surpassed by his love of his family...and Tim is my own personal lifesaver.'" Tim stopped reading. Sarah took the book from him and continued.

"'It would be impossible for me to say how much I love my family and how grateful I am to have them, to have the life I have been granted. I came close to losing it all and the fact that I didn't is a gift, one that I can never repay. In sum, this book is not so much a memoir as it is a tribute, both to the scholars, orators, politicians who came before and to my family who gives my life meaning.'"

"Your father really could be eloquent on his own when he chose to be," Naomi said, wiping her tears. "Anyway, those copies are for you. When the final version is ready, you'll get them."

"It's wonderful, Mom," Tim said.

They sat together on the couch for a long time in silence. After a while, they began taking turns reading parts of the various chapters, laughing, crying...celebrating the life of someone they loved, feeling a kind of healing from the sorrow they shared. Tomorrow, they would have to go back to normal life, but there would now be something missing from it. And yet, life would go on. Remembering Sam would be less of a burden and more of a cherished memory...and in the harder moments, they would remember the poem Sarah recited at the funeral.

Crossing the Bar
Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me,
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea.

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.

FINIS!