Jewells of Thought

The world seems so different. Until I was literally around a month from my 14th birthday the light switch was turned on. Losing someone had a deeper meaning to me. Even at around the age of 10 I think when Great-Grandma Mary died, my Grandma Rosemary’s mother, death still seemed distant to me.

Death is dark and sometimes hard to comprehend even as adults, but to be a child trying to understand. Now as I am an adult I see time as precious with those elders of mine, just as I see it’s imperative to be with my little cousins. Time spent with family is just so sweet and yet bitter when you think of the people who didn’t get to see these youngsters growing up. I do my best to speak up about the holes that I remember.

This past weekend was a nice reminder of that fact. My dad got to visit with his cousin and I got to visit with his sons and daughter in laws. Then as we perused the photo book in front of us, was a picture of dad’s aunt. Mom and I used to mow for her and my niece remembered her a little bit. It was a bittersweet moment. One of her great-grandsons graduating high school, she would have been very proud of him.

Also this weekend as I have shown pictures of I have increased my library of books. There is something about books that stirs me. Especially the ones I have been collecting from both sides of my family. There are old bibles, commentaries, and history books of America’s roots. The historian in me hates to see some of these books be given to others who didn’t know our family or why they collected these certain tomes.

There are a lot of notes written in some of these annual commentaries. I have even found some notes from just within the past 5 to 10 years. A letter must have been written 15 plus years ago from a Bud and Opal to my Grandma and her twin brother Bobby who died well over a decade ago. The second little note was made by the 1st Jeannie, since there are two women with that name at her church. I shouldn’t have been surprised when I saw the 1, but it did bring a smile.

Lastly I found a napkin. Engraved on this napkin were the names Doris and Arla 1925 – 1985. This means there were a couple of us being seen for the first time. Me and Emily are a week apart we would have made the day entertaining I’m sure plus at least our 8 or 9 older cousins. There are pictures that I have seen of this day and there were a lot of people in that Church. Sixty years is a long time to be married and they were actually married for nearly 72 years when Grandma Doris died.

Having a piece of them now after doing the newspaper research that I have done makes it a privilege to have some of what was theirs at one time. Arla loved to tell stories and I’m certain my older cousins know them better than I do. This is what I love about family trinkets. Another reason I feel blessed to have the family God gave me with their love of God, America and Family.