He loved to sing hymns and choruses. Not that Ross McIntee (my father-in-law) had a refined voice, he sang loud, on tune and with gusto. To keep congregational singing in church from dragging, he would often bellow out the beginning of a verse just before anyone else. Ross had a funny habit of finishing a line or stanza with an “m” sound. No reason was ever given for that, but it was his signature ending, a kind of period—maybe like the “Selah” found so frequently in the Book of Psalms.

Ross and Joan, whom I enjoyed calling Dad and Mom, were not my biological parents but were parents to me none-the-less on two accounts. First, they were Mary’s, making them my parents-in-law. Second, they were like spiritual parents to me. When I married Mary, I got the huge bonus of gaining them as well.

My own parents, Jack and Margaret, did a great job raising me and taking me to church along with my siblings, but our spiritual life together didn’t go much deeper than the surface. We were “good Catholics and certainly not Protestants.” We could talk church, politics, basketball, etc., but God was not personal in our home, not someone we could speak freely about. As a teenager, I talked about “Jesus Christ,” but only as an expletive, which my mother worked hard to cure me of. They brought us up to not break the ten commands, to know right from wrong, to stand up when company enters the room and to treat females respectfully (pretty tough to do growing up with an older sister in the house!). Dad Gianotti even gave me sage advice when I left for college: “Don’t get anyone pregnant!” 

Things were different with Joan and Ross (aka Mom and Dad McIntee). They had a genuine relationship with God and talked about Jesus Christ like one would speak of a friend. Prayers at mealtime were not perfunctory and rote but conversations that revealed they had bonded with Christ. And they loved to sing. Often they would have folks from church over to the house for a “sing.” Mom would tickle the ivories with her methodical style while everyone belted out the old hymns of the faith and what to them were “modern choruses,” all having to do with God and the joy of the Christian life.

I remember riding in a car with Dad and some other men, and if things got silent, Dad would start a song by memory, often knowing all five or 50 verses—sometimes singing the words from one song to the tune of another! Everyone would instinctively join in, often in four-part harmony.

In the end, when Dad suffered from dementia, his memory quickly declined. When Mom was in the hospital for a heart procedure, we stayed with Dad, and I would drive him to see Mom, just the two of us. Conversation by then was limited because he couldn’t finish any of his sentences. Anything I said had to be repeated too frequently to be construed as a meaningful conversation. He couldn’t finish a thought because he couldn’t remember how he began it.

However, I remembered an article I had read many years earlier about the role of music in helping people with dementia. So, on our trips to the hospital, I began to sing some of the old hymns and choruses that he so loved. And surprise upon surprise; he knew the verses – and far better than I did. They were etched in his memory. He didn’t have to worry about trying to piece together his thoughts, for the music carried him along as an ever-present experience. There was no first verse or last verse; there was no sequence he had to remember. The music provided the memory progression for enjoying the thoughts enshrined in the lyrics. Each word and each phrase could be enjoyed for the moment, and then the next, and the next.

He could even quote some Scripture verses that had long been familiar to him. In fact, throughout his life, he had read his Bible more than any other source of reading material. So, on those rides to the hospital, I would start a verse with the first few words, “For God so loved the world…” and he would finish it, “that he gave his only begotten son that whoever should believe on Him will not perish, but have everlasting life.” If I asked him where that verse was found, he could remember John 3:16—but I had to be quick, or he would lose it.

His memory now is perfect, for he has entered into everlasting life; and my memory of him is as strong as ever. I want to know the Bible as he did by continually reading it daily, so if I begin to lose my memory toward the end of my life, the last thing to go will be the knowledge of God’s word. As the apostle Peter confessed to Jesus, “Where would I go, for you have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68).