Thanatopsis
by
Dorothy Graham Gast

Our house was always full of our friends and when we were eating supper Daddy would lecture. We thought he was just talking to all of us. He must have memorized hundreds of poems and chapters of the Bible. We all thought he was the smartest man we knew. Our food would cool in front of us after someone asked, “What does that mean?" and he would explain so kids and teenagers could understand.
Last verse of Thanatopsis, by William Bryant, a poem about living well so that you do not fear death
“So live, that when thy summons comes to joinThe innumerable caravan, which movesTo that mysterious realm, where each shall takeHis chamber in the silent halls of death,Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothedBy an unfaltering trust, approach thy graveLike one who wraps the drapery of his couchAbout him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. “

William Cullen Bryant
He might follow that with:
Ecclesiastes 12
1 Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them;
2 While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain:
3 In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened,
4 And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low;
5 Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets:
6 Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern.
7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.
He explained that this is about getting old, with trembling hands, and weak legs, eyes dim, and hearing fading. He said that choosing to live life wisely when we are young leads to fewer regrets when we know longer feel all powerful and in charge. I don't know how well we listened, but it was better that the lectures parents often give. It was as if he were giving us a magic secret. The cold winter day he was buried there was not standing room in the church, and gifts in his memory remodeled our Masonic lodge.
One time when I quoted my father's interpretation of a poem in class, my teacher, Miss Pauline Nabors asked, "Is your father a professor at the University?” I answered, “No, he's a mechanic."
Dorothy Graham Gast