Beech Tree News Network

I called my sister-in-law, yesterday, to tell her how much I appreciated the way she took time to make home-made pizza with my kids when they were little.  I called after watching my daughter with her own daughter.  Making pizza with her Aunt Susan is one of Natalie’s favorite memories, so she brought home the ingredients to make pizza with Sabria.  (My daughter, Nikki’s, favorite memory with an aunt is the time the fire trucks showed up because yet another pot of Aunt Charlotte’s green beans boiled dry and smoked up the place, setting off the home-alert system, to whose call Charlotte couldn’t remember the pass word.  To Charlotte’s chagrin, Nikki has pictures.)
    I am often pulled back to the realization that life happens in increments, a series of shared moments that mold and shape us into who we are as well as who we will become.  It often seems to me that I don’t consciously choose those moments; they just remain, while others blow away like chaff.  My moments involve making tomato juice with Aunt Della, catching lightening bugs with my sisters, visiting the mansions in Rhode Island with Garey, Natalie and Nikki. 
    There are small things I wish I still had because of what they represent.  I remember the comfort of a small puppet called Pinky when I was in the hospital as a five-year-old; a book with bird stickers I made in the fifth grade, a year during which so many things about nature came alive for me; the leaf booklet I made with my dad’s help.  He worked at a sawmill, and after work, he walked with me through the woods gathering leaves and telling me which trees they had fallen from.  I can still see the two of us, my young child energy, his steady walk and laugh; the awe I felt at his knowledge, the realization he must have had that I felt that kind of admiration.
    I tried to kindle some interest in the things that made me happy as a child in my own children, but they had their own moments.  Some of them were with me—Nikki liked making tomato juice—but many of their moments were with others, like Natalie and Susan and the pizza.  The moments my children had that were memorable were unexpected, as they usually are.  Nikki remembers the first time I saw an apple gourd.  She and her friend, Josh, brought one by the office of New Image Car Care, where I was working.  I was delighted.  She and Josh both giggled at my reaction.  Natalie and Nikki, both, remember riding horses at the Fields’ farm.  I wonder what my granddaughter will remember, and if any of those memories will involve Garey and me.
    One summer evening, Garey worked late in the fields.  He came into the house around dusk.
    “Come on,” he said, “I want to show you something.”
    We walked down the hill behind the house, across the gully and up onto the hill overlooking the bottoms.  As we crested the hill, I could see thousands of tiny lights on the ground cover of the fields.  They were glow worms.  I had never seen them in multitudes before (or since) and it was breath taking.
    The tragedy of forgetting is that there ceases to be reliving, the losing forever of those simple, extraordinary moments that, when strung together, weave a life worth living.   I read once, that a life worth living is a life worth documenting.  I am so grateful to this newspaper for giving me the opportunity to document my moments.  The days are ahead when all that will exist of what I remember will be the written word.