Good News Florida

Leslie Feldman Publisher Good News conducted an interview with Stephan Tchividjian on Friday morning, Febru- ary 23, 2018, two days after the passing of his Grandfather, The Reverend William "Billy" Gra- ham. Stephan is the oldest grandchild of Billy Graham and President of the National Christian Foundation-South Florida, and sits on many Christian and philanthropic Boards; a list of sig- nificant length. We sincerely thank Stephan Tchividjian for ex- clusively sharing his most intimate memories with the readers of the Good News - LJF. Good News - People can read about Billy Graham in his bio, but what we want to know from you is… He’s your grandfather. Who’s the real Billy Graham in pri- vate life and around family? Stephan Tchividjian - That’s a good question and one of the things that I would say without any hesitation is he was always the same in private as he was in pub- lic, meaning that there was just a genuine humility. He was always more interested in you than you may have been in him. He was authentic. I never saw something in private that didn’t reconcile with his public life. So that was something that was very impressionable upon me was that he was just a real person. Now he was a real person in the sense that there were times he would be in a bad mood about something. There were times when he was pessimistic about something or con- cerned about something just like all of us are, so there was a reality to who he was as a person. He wasn’t this overtly super spiritual person that you sort of felt like had a halo around his head. At the same time he never told a dirty joke, never said anything negative about anybody even if you tried to get him to say some- thing negative. I never experienced that. He was always true to what he believed. GN - How old were you when you realized he was a big deal? ST - That’s a great question. I just grew up in it. The way I’ve compared it is some- times if you were born into money for example. If you were born into a family of great wealth and you asked when did you realize you had wealth, the person would say I’ve always had it. It wasn’t like I knew not to have it. So it wasn’t like he was not a famous guy and then all of a sudden became a famous guy and it was like, we always knew him. We call him Daddy Bill, but we always knew Daddy Bill as a preacher who had all these cool friends. As little kids I don’t think we probably appreciated the various people that we got to meet or be around be- cause of who my grandfather is. I don’t think it was until later on when we had a deeper understanding of that. But for me it was always. I’m the oldest, the first grandchild. For me it was just a constant. GN - Take a moment to think. What was the one thing or the things that the public never saw about Billy Graham. ST - I don’t think they ever saw the extent of his humility. I mean he did not go around thinking he was a big deal. I would see that in the way he would treat a taxi cab driver or a waiter or a waitress. The way he would have a conversation with someone in an elevator. I mean he was genuine. He didn’t walk around with some big posse and wanted special treatment everywhere. I mean when I grew up he bought his suits a Sears, usually drove a Ford, just a normal car. He didn’t have fancy cars. His house was normal. So I think that even though they recog- nized him as this incredible, old influential leader, I just think they didn’t know how his private life was. It wasn’t until much later on, he mostly for health reasons would fly private. And that was mostly because he would have a friend who would say, I have a plane I’m going to lend it to you. He wasn’t this guy who this was his MO. So I think they just didn’t see the extent of his humility. PERSPECTIVE 4 MARCH 2018 Good News • South Florida Edition - Stephan N. Tchividjian - National Christian Foundation President And I think another thing people didn’t always see was he could be pessimistic sometimes. In other words if there was a big meeting he was holding and it was an outdoor meeting and he woke up that morning and looked out the window and saw a cloud on the horizon, he would be convinced within a few minutes that the cloud was going to develop into a storm and it was going to ruin the meeting and no one was going to come that night. Or if he had a headaches, he was convinced it was a brain tumor and he would die. So it was that side of him because people always saw him as this great, strong, powerful preacher. He never moved away from a deep understanding of I’m a sinner just like everyone else. He did not think he was better than anybody. He did not think that he was holier than anybody. He would often quote and just say, I am such a wicked sinner. I mean I am just a sinner like everybody else, so he was just… he just had that side of him that I think people sometimes overlook or didn’t see unless they spent some time with him. GN – When growing up with your mother, what is something she may have said about her dad, Billy Graham, that shocked or surprised you? ST - That shocked or surprised me…hmmm. I don’t think there was ever anything she would have said about him that shocked or surprised me either in the negative or the positive… certainly not in the negative. In the positive I just think there was just such a consistency with my grandfather and his life. I think that’s not really answering your question, but one thing that my grandfather would say and I think some of the children would concur was that if he had a regret, the regret would be that he didn’t spend as much time with the family as he needed to. Too much travel, Remembering “Daddy Bill” – An Interview with Stephan Tchividjian on Billy Graham Stephan Tchividjian and his son Stetson (baby), Gigi Graham and Billy Graham (3 generations)