A Tribute to My Dad: What a Wonderful World It Was With You.
I’ll preface this by saying this blog post has zero to do with AC Madden Photography, but I wanted my tiny corner of the internet to know how incredible my dad, Jim Harris, was. Two months ago we unexpectedly lost my dad and I gave the eulogy at his funeral.
So, with this being my first Fathers Day without him, now seemed as good of a time as ever to share the eulogy I gave at his celebration of life in April.
Today is especially hard. And if you’re going through today without your dad too, I’m so sorry.
4.8.25
Thank you all for coming today to celebrate the life of my dad, Jim.
I’m confident that my dad is looking down on this crowd of people and yelling “Trip out. TRIP. OUT!” at all the people who’ve come to celebrate his life.
He’s probably also rolling his eyes at any of you who made the unforgivable mistake of “yankee parking”. For those of you unfamiliar with this Jim-ism, it’s when someone pulls through a parking spot so that the front of their car is facing “out”, instead of just backing in. It took me longer than I’d like to admit that this, and many other little shortcuts that bugged my dad, were not originated by northerners.
He would also just like to remind everyone here one last time that he officially left this Earth without ever getting a traffic ticket. That’s not to say he didn’t ever deserve one - but I suppose he used the ole Harris charm to get out of any would-be traffic violations. You would think that this was his life’s greatest accomplishment for the amount of times he brought it up.
As I’ve reflected these past few days, I’ve thought a lot about how lucky my younger brother, Drew, and I are to have had such an amazing dad. I think it’s important to remember that not everyone gets a great or even good dad. Not everyone gets a dad that is there for all of their sports games and matches, or who gets to see them graduate highschool or college, or dance with them on their wedding day, or be there for the birth of their grandchildren. I know that every milestone to come will be a painful reminder that our dad isn’t with us, but I AM thankful for what he was able to be a part of. And he wasn’t just a “part” of our lives - he was an “ALL IN” kind of dad.
He spent almost all of his free time with me and my brother. He wasn’t the kind of dad to work super late or on the weekends, because it was important to him to spend time with me and my brother. When he got home from work, he would spend quality time with us, whether it was playing tennis with Drew or laying on the floor drawing with me. He was a great tennis player and an incredible artist.
One of my and Drew’s favorite shared memories was when our dad would tell us spooky stories of two adventurous kids named “Joe and Jim”, which came to be known as “Joe and Jim Stories”. At the time we were wowed by our dad’s creative story telling abilities, until we realized later in life he was all but plagiarizing Steven King novels and giving us the PG version. Oh, and I’m sure it goes without saying, but in these stories “Jim” was the good kid and “Joe” was the trouble maker.
My dad always went the extra mile for us kids. In July 2005, the 6th Harry Potter book was released, and I was in Hawaii with my aunt, uncle, and cousin. I was so sad to not be able to stand in line at midnight for the book as was our tradition, and so my dad decided he would stand in line for me. To be clear, he was not a Harry Potter fan (I suppose I’ll let it slide now), but he had somehow convinced himself that if he didn’t stand in line for the book that night, that they would sell out, and his Harry Potter obsessed daughter would be doomed to inevitable spoilers from friends who got their hands on the book first. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I bought the book at the Honalulu airport and read the entire thing on the flight home.
When I went to college, I quickly realized how much I still needed my parents for a lot of things. But one thing that wasn’t on my bingo card was how to rid a dresser of a spider infestation. I called my dad once, in TEARS, because I found, like, 20 spiders in my dresser. He immediately went out to the store, bought some sort of spider killing spray, and drove 1 and a half hours up to Athens to kill them for me.
So many of my earliest memories are of my dad:
In Columbia, he drove me to school all of first grade and we would often stop and get Dunkin Donuts. We listened to a lot of Hootie and the Blowfish and Louis Armstrong on repeat that year. And 22 years later, we would dance to “What A Wonderful World” on my wedding day. He loved the verse “I hear babies cry, I watch them grow, they’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know.” He liked the idea that our kids would grow up in a world that was that much bigger and better even than his own - a world with more opportunities to learn, and love, and grow; and in turn take that knowledge and make the world a little bit better for the next generation.
As a teenager, it was rare that I wouldn’t wake up on a Saturday morning to Bruce Springsteen blaring on the living room speakers with my dad loudly and passionately belting along at the top of his lungs. Later in life I would come to appreciate his love of music, and with one of my first paychecks after college, I bought tickets for the two of us to see the Boss for his birthday. Several fellow concert goers would come up to us and remark how they wish their daughters would take them to see their favorite artist, and it made my dad absolutely beam with pride that I was there with him.
In 2020, mere days before the pandemic, we had the opportunity to travel to Europe together. I’ll never forget getting off the plane and up to the end of the jetway, and turning around to see my dad still just a few steps off the plane with his phone out, taking pictures to document his first steps in Europe. We made so many incredible memories that trip visiting Nina, who was like a second daughter to my dad.
My dad was ecstatic to be a granddad, or “Pop Pop” as he is known by my children, Harry and Mary-Austin. One of my favorite things was watching him love on his grand babies. He drove up to Atlanta from Johns Creek twice a week for 6 months to watch Harry so that he didn’t have to go to daycare the first 9 months of his life, and he’s made many visits to Atlanta this past year to spend time with Mary-Austin. I’ll spend the rest of my life making sure they knew how loved they were by their Pop Pop.
I often heard the story of my birth and how the doctor said to my dad “Well dad, what do we have?” and he prematurely shouted “it’s a boy! Oh wait, a girl!” And then, 7 years later, I got one of the happiest phone calls of my life from my dad, who excitedly told me “it’s a boy!” He got it right this time around.
My brother Drew and I are 7 years apart, so he had his own special memories with my dad which I want to share now on his behalf:
Dad was very involved with Drew’s cub scouts “den”, and they went on many camping trips together. On one trip, the den went cave diving. There was one particular part where you had to get on your stomach and roll, and at the end of it, he was huffing and puffing about to pass out - either from being out of shape, claustrophobia, or both.
He took Drew to see Spiderman when he was about 4 years old, and there was a fountain right outside the theatre. Dad gave Drew some coins and he excitedly threw them all in, one at a time, with each toss saying “I wish I was spider man I wish I was spider man I wish I was spider man!” I know this was one of my dad’s most precious memories of Drew because he told it often.
One time he took Drew out of Kindergarten early to go to a day game for the Braves vs the Phillies. It was a rescheduled game so not a lot of people were there. My dad took Drew behind the dugout, where several players threw balls at Drew for him to catch.
We spent a lot of Thanksgiving and summer holidays in Winston Salem with my mom’s sister and her family, and some of Drew’s favorite memories of dad were hiking around the area and visiting the neighborhood pool. Dad would always brag to Drew and my cousin Abigail how he could easily jump off of the highest diving board at the pool. Well, that next summer rolled around and they were not going to let him forget it! A man of his word, he made the jump! But in hearing him retell the story he said he almost passed out!
They took a father son trip out to LA when Drew was in 6th grade. They went to a Dodgers game, the Griffith Observatory, got hotdogs at Pink’s, and saw the famous Hollywood sign. But perhaps most memorable was how dad drove like a madman in LA traffic. I can only imagine the colorful language Drew heard on that trip.
In recent years he and Drew bonded over their love of various tv shows. One weekend in highschool, he and my dad binged 4 seasons of Breaking Bad. When I lived at home after college, the three of us watched the last season together when it aired live on tv.
Drew played on the Lacrosse Team for his high school, and my dad would pick him and his friends up after practice to drive them home. He would have to hang his head out the window, dry-heaving the whole way home, because the body odor of 4 teenage boys was apparently too much for his sensitive stomach to bear.
And now, I’m not sure if this is a happy memory or if Drew just wanted to remind me - but he and my dad helped me move every single year I was in college, in and out of each dorm, sorority house, apartment - as well as every house and apartment I’ve rented across Atlanta between 2013-2018.
And while I’m the black sheep of this South Carolina Gamecocks family being the sole Georgia bulldog graduate, I know my dad always loved having Drew around as someone he could yell at the TV with whenever the “shame cocks” screwed up a big play.
They really enjoyed watching the Gamecocks together, especially football, both on TV and live at Williams-Brice stadium. The last game they saw in person was in 2022 when the Gamecocks upset Tennessee, and the last game they watched together was this year when the Gamecocks upset Texas A&M.
About three years ago I remember dad telling me he was going to his 40th High School Reunion. It was there that he reconnected with a long lost acquaintance from his Irmo days, Sherry Durkee. After that night, he and Sherry would message on Facebook occasionally, but it wasn’t until she was diagnosed with breast cancer one year later that they started to talk more and bond over their shared cancer experience. They began talking on the phone during her drives to her radiation appointments, and on March 26, 2024, they ran into each other at Starbucks. After that, there weren't many days that they didn’t spend together.
I met Sheri for the first time this past July. Before I even saw her walk up, I saw my dad beaming from ear to ear. The two of them looked like two teenagers in love. It was the sweetest sight to behold, and truly everything I’d ever wished for my dad to find in this chapter of his life.
What impressed me the most about Sheri was that she loved everything about my dad - even the things that I found to be a bit aggravating at times.
But what I love most about Sheri is how HAPPY she made my dad, and from talking and getting to know her, he made her happy too.
My dad was at a place where he seemed to be fully enjoying life. He was making plans like he hadn’t in years. He was looking forward to so many things.
A couple weeks ago, he and Shari drove down to Atlanta to visit us for my son Harry’s 3rd birthday. Because he and Shari were inseparable just like two kids in love, he and I hadn’t had many 1 on 1 conversations recently. But during this visit right before they left to head back to Columbia, Shari took a call in another room and my dad and I sat on the sofa and chatted - just the two of us. I didn’t know it then, but it would be the last face to face conversation we would have.
No one knows when it’s their “time” to leave this Earth. So I’m thankful that our last conversation was one filled with love and reassurances. We talked about my brother Drew, and my dad said how happy he was that Drew was happy, and how much he enjoyed their visits now that he lived closer to him. We hugged goodbye and told each other “I love you”. I take comfort in knowing that my dad left the world at peace, having felt fulfillment in every aspect of his life.
My dad and I had a lot of things in common - not all the best qualities necessarily - our impatience, for example - math homework at the dinner table in middle and high school was ROUGH - but I always felt like I understood him a bit better than some maybe could because of what we had in common.
We were forgetful, but one thing he never let me forget was how proud he was of me and Drew, and how deeply we were loved by him.
Dad, we’ll miss you for the rest of our lives until we meet again. We’ll never forget you, and we’ll love you forever.