Daddy, I Remember You
By Jorene Garrison

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I began writing this song around Memorial Day, 2005. I just wanted to tell my dad that I remembered him. It was not until after I had written the song that I discovered AWON.  I was surprised to learn that there was a whole network of people out there who felt what I was feeling. Perhaps my song speaks for more people than just myself.

Neither my brother Bobby nor I have any memories of our dad. Everything that we know about him has been told to us by our mother throughout the years. I call them our “borrowed memories.”  Mom wanted us to know that he loved us and that he was an honorable man.

I would like to thank Eliza and Eliana Benedick for adding their precious voices to this recording. Also, I want to thank my son Derek for playing the harmonica, my son David for playing the guitar, and Jim Wingerter, our praise and worship leader, for playing Taps. All of the other instruments were computer generated by Jim, who was also the recording engineer. I want to thank my husband, Kenny, who is always my strong support.

Finally, I would like to give special recognition to the late Mr. Howard Gardner, my mother’s cousin, who photographed my dad’s “final homecoming” and funeral in January of 1949. It was at this time that daddy was brought back home and buried in the local cemetery at Magnolia, Kentucky. We have used many of his pictures in this video.  Without them, many of our “memories” would not exist. (My dad was killed on a bridge near Zeitz, Germany on April 13, 1945. He was buried temporarily in the US Military Cemetery in Eisenach, Germany, and later moved to Margraten, Holland until 1949.) 

 Jorene Elkins Garrison