Saturday, July 14, 2007

The Past

Today I went to a family reunion. It was my dad's side of the family which, other than my aunt and 2 cousins, I haven't seen in decades. I am around my mom's side of the family much more and see them pretty regularly, so when we have family reunions, it's only been a few months since I've seen them.

But today, was very different because it kind of took me back. Like I said, I hadn't seen some of these people since I was a kid and some of them, I had never met! But the ones I knew, it was kind of like a trip down memory lane:

I saw Claudia and Nat and remember me, Mandi, and my 2 cousins swinging on their wooden swing in the back yard and breaking it!

I saw Jane and remember how me and Hannah ended up locking her daughter Lorraine in a van.

I saw John & Mary Lou (I think that's their names!) and remember how we used to play Nintendo with their grandsons, Gabe, Leon, & Jesse, when they came to visit from California.

Of course, everyone is all grown up and married with kids now which were running around everywhere. But one thing that was neat was when each family introduced themselves and how they were part of the Brown family. Then they started talking about old stories. It was so neat.

I never got to meet my dad's dad, Boyd, but it was so neat to see his only living sibling and one of his cousins. What was he like? It's so weird for me to think about that because all my life, I've only had 1 grandfather and he has been a huge part of my life, so when I think of "grandfather", he's all I know. But how would've Boyd changed my perception of the word grandfather? What would've I had called him?

There was so much history represented there today. One day, people I haven't even met yet will be sitting around talking about me after I'm gone (Lord willing)! What will they be saying?

What will your relatives say about you?

3 comments:

Brandybuzz said...

I love family history. Just recently I have really gotten into tracing the McCleskey line of my family. Partly because my only grandfather that I knew is gone now and they all lived right where I live today. My great great great grandfather lived on Shallowford Rd. and my address is Shallowford Rd. just that is crazy to me. We only live like 5 miles from where his house was.

Anonymous said...

You left out the part that you locked Loraine in the van on purpose & didn't Hannah even spank her?!! I've often wondered about "Boyd" too & what we would have called him, who he was, what he would have been like as a grandfather & also how Granny would have been different with him around! Why don't we ever really talk about him ... seriously, all I know is that he was a business man, owned a Firestone, smoked, loved animals, and liked surprising Dad with presents the way Dad was with us ... but is all that true or did I just make some of that up b/c we don't really talk about him??

Anonymous said...

Great post, Staci! I love what you said about how the word "grandfather" would be different had you known Boyd. What an interesting thought!

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