As I get older, it seems that time and my memories are starting to play tricks on me. Time seems to be speeding up, while I am slowing down. Just as I’m ready to think about the past, my memories are starting to recede. Trying to remember dates from my personal timeline is difficult. You know that saying on the rearview mirror: “Objects may be closer than they appear?” Well, I never was good with driving in reverse.
For the last few years, as Easter approaches I remember the very difficult holiday weekend we spent in Utah, with all the events leading up to and surrounding Grandma Roa’s funeral. It does strangely appropriate that this important family event happened around Easter – with all its symbolism of rebirth and resurrection.
Since I couldn’t remember the exact date, I spent part of this past Easter weekend sorting through and organizing the piles of letters and materials from my grandmothers. I found the obituary and funeral home program relating to Grandma Roa and verified that it was only six years ago.
On the one hand, I thought it was fewer years than that, and on the other, it does seem longer. Perhaps because so many things have happened to me and to the family since then?
I do think there was something poignant in Grandma passing on Easter weekend. LDS/Mormons do not have the pageantry around Easter like some faiths, but we do but great stock in what the holiday is all about: sacrifice, remission of sins, resurrection, and reuniting after periods of separation. The emphasis for us in on Easter Sunday, not bunnies, candy, eggs, or 40 days of something followed by a Fat Weekday.
As for this “gray sheep,” I worshiped this past weekend with and in Nature, and with a personal spring-cleaning ritual, bringing me closer to the Spirit of Elijah.
Although it may seem like forever to those of use here on this plane, I do believe that we’ll have a chance to see our loved ones again. Now that I’ve been rereading all of the letters and advice from my grandmas, I have more questions for them now than I did growing up. Between being young and busy, too reticent to dig too deeply into family histories, and falsely believing that there “would be time for that later,” I missed too many opportunities to find out things. I look forward to having the opportunity to talk freely with my grandmothers Ollie and Roa, hug my grandfathers Jack and June, and meet my great+ grandparents, not to mention my great-aunt Rachel, and to finally meet my namesake.
I hope you’ll bear with me over the next year or so, as I post various recollections of my grandmothers, their letters to me, some of my letters to them, and ponderings on their passings. Hopefully this will be a jumping off point for other family members to chime in and fill in more of the family history.
Won't you walk with me a while?
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