I received an heirloom on my last visit home. It was originally a gift from my grandmother to my grandfather before they were married. It subsequently passed to my father after my grandfather's death, and now it has come to me, on the condition it'll go to my oldest nephew when I shuffle off this mortal coil.
It's a ruby, slightly scratched, set in a gold ring.
It's a humbling gift, and it made me think about my grandfather's life, and my father's, and about the ultimate inevitability of death. But at the same time the ring represents a continuance of a sort. It's a thread through the generations. In this case, the thread is all the more bitter-sweet because in each case, my grandmother personally passed on the ring as a result of a recipient's passing.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Friday, July 22, 2011
Visiting Home
I'm back where I grew up to attend an old friend's wedding. Most of the old gang is here (minus one who couldn't make it--we miss you JD!).
As we sat around talking last evening, I think most of us realized that we'd planned far too short a trip. It was just so good to see everyone. We relaxed into ourselves, the people we'd been in jr. high and high school, and laughed at the half-remembered (or well-remembered!) jokes and stories from the old days.
I'm writing this with my feet up on a recliner, passing the time with my Mom in her very comfortable home. Later, the wedding, and tomorrow and the next day I'll go see my grandmothers, each still living out on the farm where each one has lived for the last forty or fifty years (at least).
There's a lot of history in this place; it made me the person I am today. I think I sometimes take that for granted. Or I only think about all the reasons I left.
But not today.
Watertown SD, for this weekend at least, you're number one in my book.
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