CLAY AND WATTLES

Generation to Generation

I talked to Mama last night to see how she did yesterday at home. She sounded pretty weak still, but home health had been there and they're still working getting her meds straight so she can tell a brand from a generic, etc. Steve was there to be informed, thank goodness for him.

I learned from Mama that Aunt Shirley, Mama and Aunt Margaret's younger sister, has lung cancer, and it has metastazied to her brain. She is undergoing treatments. She is only 13 years older than me. I have a wonderful picture of her with me in her lap, when she was about that age, because I appeared to be six months or so old. And I will post it when I find it. She has red hair, as does her husband, only now his is probably gray or gone, and Shirley's may still be red if she didn't let it be natural, which I can't imagine! Their three children had red hair and freckles, cute kids. And so I don't think of them too often, just because of time and distance, although we exchange Christmas cards almost every year. But then something like this happens and I think of all the years we didn't stay in touch, all the events in our lives that were left unknown to each other. But that's what happens with families so often.

Once upon a time, Shirley and Ray (we called him Red for a long time, maybe as long as he had red hair!), offered for me to come live with them when I was going through a particularly bad time, but I chose to stay with Goobie, my grandmother. Of course, I won't ever forget their generosity. At the time, I had undergone too many changes, and I would have had to move to Rhode Island, where they lived at the time.

My sister and I are so close, and I can only imagine how Mama must feel. She is unwell herself, Aunt Margaret is in an assisted living center, and now Aunt Shirley. No one in our family has had cancer. Why? Why her? I feel bad for Mama, for myself that we didn't stay in touch. It only reinforces my conviction of how important families are, and how we do need to stay in contact. So there is JoAnn, Margaret's daughter, Danny, her son. Mike, Pam and Robin, Shirley's kids. All my cousins on Mama's side that are far-flung and distant. And their children and grandchildren.

I bet there was a time when Virginia, Margaret, Shirley, even Charles, thought it couldn't really happen to them, that it would be so distant in the future that it couldn't possibly ever occur, that they would grow old and leave each other, their families, and this world. A generation comes and a generation goes. It is difficult to grasp at times, that the older we get, the closer we are to that next step: Being the oldest generation, "standing in the gap" between youth and eternity, and leaving the legacy of family with the ones following us.