remembrance
it's been far too long since i've written anything down because the world around me has been so hectic and busy and i've not had the time to sit and fill the screen with all those words floating around inside my head. and what would i say if i did sit down and write? how much i miss him? how i don't feel like i breathe without feeling him breathe next to me? how i long to see his smile in the morning? yes, mostly.
and there are other things too. there was a death this week. another death in the circle of the generation that skips just one above mine. it saddens me that the ring of that family tree is dying off, growing smaller, closing for the final time on this earth. a good man passed this week. a good man who took care of his family and worked hard and raised three boys and lived in the country a place just a mile from where he was born all his life. and he was buried just a mile from there too, in that little cemetary behind that little church where generations of my family lay in silent slumber. liberty.
i remember memorial day. it was the day we remembered. we don't do that anymore because we are busy having picnics and kicking back and enjoying life and too far caught up in what we are doing to drive the 3 hours to place flowers on the graves of those who came before us and it makes me sad because now i wouldn't even remember the places my grandparents too me to lay flowers on the graves of my great grandparents and great great grandparents. it was a ritual when i was a child to get up early on that sacred saturday of that weekend and load up the truck with the flowers and the children and head out down south to the open fields of green. we would leave so early it was still dark outside. we would go with sleepy eyes and get in the truck and lay down in the mattress in the back of the bed (covered by a camper shell of course) and sleep the whole long way ... until we got to the little town where my grandfather's name was engraved on the statue in the square that paid homage to those who went to fight in the big war. and in that little town we would wake up to the smell of fresh fried pies. i miss those fried pies, the cold cold milk, the stories my grandma would tell us of the days my grandpa courted her in that little town, the time when they fell in love. and all of that is gone now, and dying more each day as the final connections to that time die off each, one by one, year by year, until all that remain are our parents and our generation. even the promises made to the great grandmother matriarch to meet the first sunday of july for family reunion have been broken and changed because the people of the latter generations are just too busy those weekends to honor the traditions that have come before us. it makes me incredibly sad.
i cried all my tears for it last night. i cried until i could cry no more. i cried for this man whose middle name was nicholas, i cried for the loss of our family, i cried for my own loss of belonging to something that was bigger than myself. i cried for my loss of that place that was known to me always as "down home".
i have lost my father, and some day i will lose my mother. i came so nearly close to losing her last year. someday it will be me that holds our little numbers of family together. someday i will be the one who will make sure that everyone remembers the good old days. and i will be the one who passes on the stories of my grandparents to all the children. because they should know what incredible people they were. they should know that their great grandfather fought in world war two, that their great grandmother played on the boys basketball team in the 1930's because there wasn't a team for girls. they should know the romantic story of how they met and married and how she kissed him goodbye before he went off to the war. and i will tell them, because they need to know that they came from so much more than just us, than just this generation that seems so unbalanced, so screwed up, so busy that there is no time just for remembrance.
and there are other things too. there was a death this week. another death in the circle of the generation that skips just one above mine. it saddens me that the ring of that family tree is dying off, growing smaller, closing for the final time on this earth. a good man passed this week. a good man who took care of his family and worked hard and raised three boys and lived in the country a place just a mile from where he was born all his life. and he was buried just a mile from there too, in that little cemetary behind that little church where generations of my family lay in silent slumber. liberty.
i remember memorial day. it was the day we remembered. we don't do that anymore because we are busy having picnics and kicking back and enjoying life and too far caught up in what we are doing to drive the 3 hours to place flowers on the graves of those who came before us and it makes me sad because now i wouldn't even remember the places my grandparents too me to lay flowers on the graves of my great grandparents and great great grandparents. it was a ritual when i was a child to get up early on that sacred saturday of that weekend and load up the truck with the flowers and the children and head out down south to the open fields of green. we would leave so early it was still dark outside. we would go with sleepy eyes and get in the truck and lay down in the mattress in the back of the bed (covered by a camper shell of course) and sleep the whole long way ... until we got to the little town where my grandfather's name was engraved on the statue in the square that paid homage to those who went to fight in the big war. and in that little town we would wake up to the smell of fresh fried pies. i miss those fried pies, the cold cold milk, the stories my grandma would tell us of the days my grandpa courted her in that little town, the time when they fell in love. and all of that is gone now, and dying more each day as the final connections to that time die off each, one by one, year by year, until all that remain are our parents and our generation. even the promises made to the great grandmother matriarch to meet the first sunday of july for family reunion have been broken and changed because the people of the latter generations are just too busy those weekends to honor the traditions that have come before us. it makes me incredibly sad.
i cried all my tears for it last night. i cried until i could cry no more. i cried for this man whose middle name was nicholas, i cried for the loss of our family, i cried for my own loss of belonging to something that was bigger than myself. i cried for my loss of that place that was known to me always as "down home".
i have lost my father, and some day i will lose my mother. i came so nearly close to losing her last year. someday it will be me that holds our little numbers of family together. someday i will be the one who will make sure that everyone remembers the good old days. and i will be the one who passes on the stories of my grandparents to all the children. because they should know what incredible people they were. they should know that their great grandfather fought in world war two, that their great grandmother played on the boys basketball team in the 1930's because there wasn't a team for girls. they should know the romantic story of how they met and married and how she kissed him goodbye before he went off to the war. and i will tell them, because they need to know that they came from so much more than just us, than just this generation that seems so unbalanced, so screwed up, so busy that there is no time just for remembrance.
posted by crazy in kc @ 10:57 AM
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