As I have sorted through my parents things in the past, I have put aside letters, stories, personal papers "to be sorted later"... Now I am opening up those boxes to peruse and sort again .....my dad wrote a lot of stories about his growing up years and he actually filled out those little books I gave him that asked all sorts of questions ......
So I have my copier working for me, and we are working through all these papers with the goal of putting a lot into book form to share with children and cousins.....
It is fun and arduous at the same time.....receipts for the hospital bills when he was born($92), his first car, his appendicitis surgery as a child, grades from grammar school, love letters between my parents, pictures of old girl friends, a tee shirt from his first job, loan papers, ration certificates from World War 2, tokens for driving across the Golden Gate Bridge, packages of cowboy jokes(carefully clipped out of the western livestock journal for years), poems....
Sometimes it feels like he is right there in the room with me...chuckling over a forgotten piece of paper or rereading the jokes or looking and explaining long ago pictures with no notations.....sharing life again like he loved to do .....
It is easier now, a year and a half out from his death, I am not so tired, I am able to think and process more clearly, can laugh easier, not needing tissues as much, not as mad at the circumstances of his death....time does help and give perspective...God continues to comfort.....thank YOU for that...
I loved my parents, they were upstanding people, not perfect, but wonderful to family and those around them...they were truly the salt of the earth...they were honest, hardworking, interested in the world, creative, .....they loved me, their parents, their grandchildren and great grandchildren and they loved God....what a heritage....
Thank YOU for allowing me the privilege to sort again, finding reminders of heritage....of loving parents, loving family, connections through generations...
Deuteronomy 32:7 Remember the days of old;consider the generations long past.Ask your father and he will tell you,your elders, and they will explain to you.
Psalm 22:30-31 Posterity will serve him;future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim his righteousness,declaring to a people yet unborn:He has done it!
Psalm 71:18 Even when I am old and gray,do not forsake me, my God,till I declare your power to the next generation,your mighty acts to all who are to come.
Psalm 78:4 We will not hide them from their descendants;we will tell the next generationthe praiseworthy deeds of the Lord,his power, and the wonders he has done.
Psalm 102:18 Let this be written for a future generation,that a people not yet created may praise the Lord:
Psalm 79:13 Then we your people, the sheep of your pasture,will praise you forever;from generation to generationwe will proclaim your praise.
Psalm 100:5 For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;his faithfulness continues through all generations.
As I am busy at my task-
A homey one of making applesauce-
My hands are busy so my mind has time to travel afar,
And I remember this friend and then another,
And recall the helping hand, kind deed or encouraging word,
Or even a tear filled eye, also many a smile or joke, then, too, I remember hearing someone say,
"Don't look back and think of yesterday",
But to me it is time worthwhile spent.
This backward journey into the land of yesterday..
Just think what our lives would be
Without that road named memory...
Clara Koch Whitney, Dec. 10, 1935, my grandmother...her birthday was Dec. 8, I was wondering if she was thinking of family and birthdays ...in her homestead in the foothills of California ...
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