Ancestors

Its a new year, again, os they say by this calender, its 2007 but really its more like 5000 something or maybe a billion by now. Time is unchanging, it just keeps on moving, whether we want it to or not. It doesn't care how we measure it, change it, daylight savings time it. Time is never ending and immortal. Time steals from us, it steals our good times, happy times, sad times, memories, youth, and eventually our lives. It is the theif of always. It is time that makes me remember, remember my ancestors, well to be more precise; my grandparents. Born in 1905 & 1910 respectively, they're now gone, grandmother in 1990 and grandfather in 1992. I remember them as the year takes a turn. I don't know why I'm reflecting but I was editing a recital and this little girl looked so much like my grandmother in her last years. Slight and skinny. My grandmother lived with me my entire life. Although she was a bit aloof and not as engaging as my grandfather, she was ever present. Calling me angrily in for lunch and insisting on calling it breakfast. Stubbornly sitting there in the kitchen. I still remember, I also remember thinking forward, back then now in the past about the future when she might not be around and wanting to cry. Wanting to cry just thinking about her not being around. Like a silent shadow representing a part of my life that just fell away. Even if they hadn't died then they would be dead now.

I was glad that I talked to them and got all their stories, interesting stories. Stories that reached back into a past that is gone, a past that I will never experience. Their life experiences and the stories linked me back and linked me to a life that I can in turn clip onto my children if I have any. Memories I can share and memories that can hopefully go on forever or for as long as possible. I have another grandmother who is about 92 and her stories I dig into also. I still remember my grandmother taking me for walks around age 3. I didn't learn everything from her, but I did learn some things. Now its my aunt and mother and my cousins and myself and the next generation, the ancestors fade away and become a distant memory, a photograph in a book, a picture hanging on a wall so it is always a treat to have a story, a life story to go along with that image. And as the years roll on, the memories and their biography becomes vague until eventually time steals that, always, too.