I think I’ve written about some aspects of this before, but it’s on my mind almost all the time now. And I have to push beyond it.

My mother was born when my grandmother was 45 and already had two children, one 18 and the other 14 or 15.  I was born when Mother was 22, so for a long time I had a lot of dear relatives who were older than I . . . and I was the youngest of four grandchildren.

I knew all the stories reaching back to the 1880’s. Then a couple of my cousins on my maternal side died early and then my uncle when I was in my late 40’s. Then my aunt when she was in her 90’s. My father died in 2000 and Mother died when she was 83. These people had all been a link to my own grandmother who had been so very dear to me. She was the one who was born in 1881 and told stories of her mother and grandmother.

And things revolved around one house for all my years. So many clearly remembered vignettes from a long ways back. Some I had heard so many times, it seemed as if I were remembering them myself first hand.

And now, as I wrote once, it is just me and pots of geraniums on Memorial Day.

Mother didn’t want an estate sale and so much has stayed the same around me. I don’t think I noticed it at first, but I am beginning to believe I have been trying to keep people alive by letting things stay as they were.

It’s time for a deep breath and getting on. Well, maybe two deep breaths.