Grace Notes is, evidently enough, a compilation of Grace’s writings about her life. It says a lot about Jim — from her point of view. Its truth stands — their marriage failed each of them rather miserably — but the Jim it gives us is sorely incomplete. He was an engaging, wise and loving man, and I am eager to share a richer picture of him.

It’s true that our father was restless and unhappy for much of his adulthood; perhaps he was indeed depressed. Certainly he felt unfulfilled and underappreciated. He grew up poor in a tiny Middle Tennessee town with parents of limited emotional scope. He seemed unable to feel at peace in his work or in his marriage. He was always questing for something else, something different.

And yet — he brought countless gifts to his three children. He gave us a hunger for learning, a yen for adventure, a love of music. Every trip we’ve taken, every book we’ve read, each time we’ve hiked or camped, gone to a symphony or an opera, we have followed his lead.

He made us think about ourselves in a wider world: “Think of this,” he’d say, out of the blue. “You are a contemporary of Arturo Toscanini!” His was a questioning spirit but also a deeply faithful one. After one trip to Europe, he wrote me: “When I looked up at the spires of great, 1000-year-old churches, I had the feeling that there is a profound and eternal essence of Christianity and somehow it will appear in a new and better form. You two, go to church some Sunday and pray that you may be given a little glimpse of something noble and strengthening.”

Also: He was funny. He made ridiculous puns, often based on a twist of some place name. Returning one Sunday from preaching in Latta, S.C., he told Mother and me that he’d been sharing the Word with the Latta day saints. He would laugh at these absurdities himself so hard that his fair skin turned pink and his blue eyes watered.

Surely his “demons,” as Grace called them, made him at least as unhappy as they made her, perhaps more so. Yet, even amidst the darkness and struggle, he preached fine, thought-provoking sermons and wrote beautiful, moving prayers. He married and buried, and visited the sick, with loving pastoral care.

And here is a wonderful thing: Jim lived another 14 years after our parents’ separation, and those 14 years were filled with happiness. HE was happy. Not long after the marriage ended, Jim went courting. Margaret was a lovely girl he’d known in college. A widow. They married. She had means. The two of them put those means to good use. He retired. They bought nice homes, took cruises, traveled the world. She taught him to dance and to savor a good wine. She handled him with whimsy and humor.

Jim cared deeply for his children and for his nine grandchildren, all of whom he was lucky enough to know — or at least to hold (his youngest, our Nell, loudly inquired at his funeral: “Why did they put Granddaddy in that box?!”). He wrote wonderful letters to all of us, his script running up one side of the sheet rather than requiring another. The two of them visited us all regularly, in our moves across the country and abroad.

At the end of my 2½ years in Africa and traveling through Europe, he met me in a Munich hotel on my birthday — the first familiar person I’d seen in all that time. He’d bought a little potted plant to put on the breakfast table.

In the end, he and Margaret moved to a home at the base of North Mountain in Hot Springs. They joined the church he’d led so many years before. He raised tomatoes and collard greens and envied us the rich soil of our Iowa garden. (One Christmas, we brought him some as a gift.) He read history and biography, wrote a novel (unpublished), kept up his supply ministry, listened to the New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera and walked, most days, on North Mountain.

On the night he died, at age 75, we were all with him.

Years afterward, Margaret came to our home in D.C. for Thanksgiving, as she often did. She had remarried and brought her new husband. At some point during dinner, when David and I were in the kitchen, she slipped away from the table to join us. It was clear she had something to say. This was it: “Geneva, your daddy was the love of my life.”

I can surely understand why.