Remembering and Hindsight...they're both 20/20

Today was Jason's Grandmother's funeral. She was 88 years old, but was in excellent health. We were all very shocked when she suddenly passed away, despite her age. I first met Maw Maw a few months after Jason and I began dating. She has probably only spoken about 10 sentences to me during the entire time that I knew her. She was a woman of very few words, but yet very loving and caring. She loved her grandchildren, and her great-grandchildren. Her oldest child was a boy and he had 1 son. Her middle child never married or had any children. Jason's mother, Mrs Carol, was the baby and she went on to have her 4 boys. No girls. Jason's brother was the first of the grandchildren to have children, and he was a boy. Do you see a pattern here? Still no girls. Bayli came along a year later, which means that she was the first girl born on that side of the family in 53 years. The word spoiled officially had new meaning. The child has more jewelry than I do, and that is saying something.

During the service I kept thinking about the fact that I never really got to know Maw Maw very much. Her husband had passed away before Jason was even born. I sat and wondered how they had met... how did he propose to her? Was he a romantic? Did he ever surprise her with flowers? Was it love at first sight...or did it take a while for their love to blossom? As I sat there thinking about all of these questions, I realized that some important family history is now gone. Bayli will never know the answers to those questions about her Great-Grandparents. I love geneology and history and I have spent many hours painstakingly trying to preserve my family history...not only because I want to know, but because one day someone else may want to know. Anybody can look up birth records and death records, and any body can find out a maiden name or an anniversary date. But the stories of Maw Maw are now lost.

Hindsight is 20/20.

If I had one more afternoon with my husband's grandmother, I would have asked her what her favorite memory was of the time she shared with her husband. And I would have written it down for my grandchildren to be able to read one day. Who knows, maybe it would have began a conversation with this soft spoken, precious woman. Maybe she never talked much because I was never quiet enough to listen. I really wonder what stories she had kept inside that she may have shared with me. I would also take a picture of Bayli together with Jason's Mom and Maw Maw...because can you believe that we never thought to do that? Her only granddaughter and the first girl in 52 years and no pictures of them together. What a shame that Bayli or her children won't have that one day.

These thoughts have been playing inside my head all day. Because, even though I scrapbook, and I'm trying to put together a family history album, I now realize that I need to include some more personal information. My great-great granddaughter may need to know about my miscarriages one day. About how it prompted us to this time in our lives. She may need to know more than the facts...I was born in 1974, and that I was 28 before having my first child. It will probably give our descendants comfort to know that I was, and still am madly and passionately in love with my husband. And that if not for him, I would never have made it through the horrible pain of the miscarriages. And that I love his smile. And that after 12 years of marriage my heart still does skip a beat when he walks into a room. And that we still argue sometimes...but that we choose to make up. And that when he proposed to me it was not the story book proposal that I had always dreamed of, so I made him do it again...because it really was not that good the first time around. But he did it right the second time, and I said yes...again. I would have been crazy not to...because he completes me.

Those are the things that you can't put on a tombstone, or write about in an obituary. And to me, those are the things worth preserving...for the sake of history...for the sake of a family name.

Now, because it's not like me to be totally serious...emotional and mushy yes, serious no. Tonight at supper I asked Jason what his favorite memory was of the two of us together. He said it was our first trip to Niagara Falls. We had just gotten engaged (the not-so-good proposal time) and I had brought him to Pennsylvania to meet all of my family and we went to Niagara Falls with a friend of mine and her "friend" that she refused to call a boyfriend. Niagara Falls is absolutely something to see, especially at night. There is an amazing light show. Well, my memory was not a lovey-dovey memory. Right after we got married we moved to Gulfport for a year. When we were moving home we had made it about 5 miles, if that, outside of Gulfport and the U-haul truck that we had rented broke down. We had to pull off to the side of I-10, the u-haul and the 2 or 3 other cars who were traveling with us. This was before the days of cell phones, so someone drove to a gas station and called the U-haul company, etc. Well, one thing that I may just need to document about Jason...you know, for the sake of preserving family history and all; is that there are times when he can have a pretty short fuse. This was definitely one of those times. I, on the other hand, try to be the eternal optimist and didn't see the huge problem with being along side I-10 with all of our belongings right there with us, in a truck...that had broken down. I knew we'd figure something out and it would be ok. So, thinking this would be a good memory to document for future generations to read about one day, I started snapping some pictures. Well, he began to snap also, but in a different way. He came over and told me that he would not break the camera because it cost too much money and was way too new, but he'd have no problem injuring my picture taking finger if I snapped one more shot. Well, we'd only been married a year and that whole submission thing hadn't quite kicked in yet for me. Let's just say it got very interesting real quick.

But, I learned tonight that remembering is also 20/20, because finally, after 11 years I was able to laugh about that memory.

Ok, so truth be told, for Jason remembering is more like 20/200...because he still isn't laughing. But one day he will. And, yes, I have the Kodak and the scrapbook page all complete...our great-grandchildren should get a good kick out of that one!

Go take some time and call your grandparents, or your parents for that matter. And ask them something that you'd like to know about them. Something worth passing down. Actually, it's all worth passing down. I shudder to think of the history that is buried...lost...forever...every single day. I don't even know my grandmother's favorite color. I guess I have a phone call to make too.

Face for Grace,
Holly