Jewells of Thought

Loss is something everyone deals with and feels in our lifetimes. Sometimes it’s a lesser loss of an object or a larger than life of a precious member of your family. This week has really been an object lesson for me. Reality has dealt me as many losses as you or the next door neighbor. Jobs come and go, loved ones and sometimes their treasures as well.

Nothing could have prepared me for this week, not even a very recent conversation with my cousin. She actually mentioned this could very well happen. In twenty-three years I have had many aha moments in researching Papaw’s service time. Every few years a major conversation, a meeting with someone or finally those who are digitizing collections. What started out with 3 pages of a summary brief with Grandpa dictating his movements and thoughts to the very limber fingers of my Grandma has ended in a 17 chapter manuscript at least so far.

God simply will not let me forget the promise I made to create this book for my family. After so many of these 9th heaven moments I thought for sure I needed to forget about having these God moments of enlightenment so I decided I needed to harden myself on this point; I needed to finish the book and not allow the belief that another surprise could be in the wings again. Life is not like that right?

So this week what have I learned? God is always in control and He loves to surprise us when we least suspect such a thing to happen. However, at the same time I am dealing with such a gain, others are suffering in different ways with loss or the idea of losing home.

While I have been dealing with finding material goods that remind me of a Grandpa that has been gone for 23 years, someone else’s Grandpa died Sunday night and yet another Grandpa is being forced to make a difficult decision.

My family means so much to me whether it’s my family branches or my various church family branches. The dichotomy this week was so in my face yesterday and this morning. I walked into a house I know well, as a retired minister and an adopted grandfather of mine, my mom, uncle, brother and I leapt to help him and his oldest daughter. His daughter has health problems and neither of them can live on their own anymore.

I interviewed this World War 2 Veteran. His daughter is a widow and simply needs to be with those who can help her. He is nearly blind, but this is home. It’s where his wife died, he doesn’t want to leave his home where his church family is; even though he would be with his own family.

This morning I walked into a house I have also spent some time in. My great-uncle died in the middle of Saturday night. Visiting our aunt with my mom this morning was difficult. However, two things she specifically mentioned that struck cords with my heart have reverberated in my mind. Where I was sitting on the wall above my head was a picture from one of their boys weddings. She decided to include in the frame of the picture that her 3 sons and husband were, “My Rat Pack”. I hadn’t heard that before as a musician I was intrigued by that and had to smile. I had wondered if my maternal grandpa knew that since he was a big reason why I like jazz. She also mentioned she had lived with this man for 66 years, they were married for over six decades. She doesn’t know how to be alone and is afraid to be alone.

Loss is happening everywhere we turn. I as a historian want to analyze and sometimes overtly analyze. Here I am a granddaughter experiencing once again the effects of having loving sets of grandparents who have influenced every aspect of my life. My maternal grandpa died 18 years ago and my paternal grandpa died 23 years ago. Still… they are permeating my thoughts after losing them nearly two decades ago.

Yet… here I am with a treasure trove to document. I have recently lost some opportunities that have been difficult to process. However, God gave me this blessing. I am the first grandchild as far as I know to touch these forgotten words from letters that were written in an era so different from today.

What loss are you dealing with today or this week?