Looking Back

Angela didn't realize what she created when she gave her father and I some books a few years back that she wanted us to fill out.  You know the kind that are memories of our childhood and what things were like when we were growing up, how we met, our early lives and then when she was a little girl, etc.  Well, we each have one of those and I also got one to fill out that is strictly about her to be given to her children.  Needless to say, I have been doing quite a bit of reminiscing and going through old pictures as they want proof of our younger years.  Don't you all wish you could see some of that??!!  Sorry, but there are just some things that MUST stay within the family!

And here we are all a bit younger!

Dean, myself, daughters Jacki Lee and Angela on the far right

With Sweet T and Cam

But, that has had me thinking about all the wonderful, crazy, happy, sad and memory-making things we as families do through the years.  If you have large or small families, extended ones or rather small ones like ours, they are each unique and yet they all carry much of the same qualities.  We all laugh and cry at many of the same things, bleed when we fall down as children, love to be comforted when the going gets tough, can't wait to see the home place in our rear view mirror as teenagers and yet can't believe the changes when we see it again in the windshield as adults.  Our siblings make us crazy when we are young and hold us up as we age.  If we are fortunate enough to have had grandparents nurture us at anytime during our lives, we look back on those times with fondness and ofttimes try to replicate some of those memories with our children and grandchildren, if only by repeating the stories from our youth.  

These books for Angela have made us travel back in time to a much simpler era when it wasn't unusual to get a fifty cent allowance for doing real chores like mowing the yard, keeping a bedroom clean, doing the dishes, taking out the garbage, cleaning up after a pet or maybe keeping an eye on a younger sibling - all for that reward of two shiny quarters at the end of the week.  Times have certainly changed! 

It has been a scramble to get everything together along with all the other things going on here at home - planning our trip back to Iowa, doctor appointments, closing up the house, etc.  But I have realized one thing in all this thinking back - these kinds of memories are not to be rushed - they are to be savored - taken out one by one, turned over and examined closely, almost under a microscope.  They are precious memories and certainly as they are shared with these special people in our lives they are to be given the utmost of care for they will be passed on now for the next generations to be cared for in a new and special way, for each time our story is told and retold, those memories will linger just a bit longer.  

I hope you enjoy your own story in your corner of the world today.  It's been a good day for stories here.