My Oldest Relatives

“What do you remember about your oldest relative(s) you knew personally?”

Excellent question! The oldest people that I can remember are my grandparents. I know that my parents have told me that I met their grandparents, but I don’t remember.

My mom’s mom, Grandma, died when I was about 7. I remember staying in her house. It was an old house built on pier and beam with a space under the house. I remember that ferns grew on both sides of her sidewalk up to the house. I remember a big tree to the side of the house that had purple grapes, “mustang” grapes is what we called them. I used to climb the tree. Grandma used to watch me on occasion.

My mom’s dad died well before I was born, when my mom was a little girl. I’ve heard stories that he was a large, stout guy. He worked in the oil field.

Now, my dad’s parents have the most of my memories. My dad’s mom, Maw-Maw is still living and my kids have a relationship with her. My dad’s dad, Paw-Paw died when Hannah was a little baby. She wasn’t even a year old. As a kid, I used to think that their house was boring. I, instead, wanted to go to my cousins’ houses. That way I could play with their toys. As I grew into my teenage years, I began to appreciate Maw-Maw and Paw-Paw. I liked their humor and how they interacted. I liked the way they joked with one another. I liked the way Maw-Maw would treat Paw-Paw. I like the ways in which Paw-Paw would treat Maw-Maw in return. I appreciated the way they displayed their love.

Maw-Maw is a servant. I saw how she loved my grandfather with service. She cooked the foods he liked and prepared them in a way that he could eat them (he had very poor dental health and lost most of his teeth making eating difficult). Maw-Maw loved Paw-Paw up until the day he died, serving him how he needed it until the end. He died from an undiagnosed cancer.

Maw-Maw still lives by herself, across the road from my Uncle Melvin and Aunt Karen. She has a trailer house. She still gets around excellently. Maw-Maw is quite active in her upper 70s. She loves her kids and constantly travels to see them and her friends.

These are the oldest relatives that I can remember. The memories are probably more limited than they should because we moved away from them when I was only six years old. Perhaps, if we had remained in Dayton, I would have many more memories. But then again, I may never have met my wife and had the wonderful family we now have.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Mitch Albom has written quite an interesting, sleepy little book about his take on heaven. While Mitch attempts to address what he expects heaven to be about, I found that it wasn’t very theologically correct. His account of heaven centered around the main character, Eddie, a “good man.” There were only a very few vague mentions of God. Theologically speaking, heaven is going to be centered around God.

Nevertheless, the book was a fun read and offered some great insights. The story essentially was about a hard-working man who lived a mediocre life. Not unlike anyone of us. He dies a tragic death and finds himself in heaven. Heaven, according to Albom is a meeting place in which one ends up meeting five people to shed a light on one’s life on earth. This helps the hard-worker to bring perspective to the way all people are connected in life. In Albom’s own words, “people think of heaven as a paradise garden, a place where they can float on clouds and laze in rivers and mountains. But scenery without solace is meaningless. This is the greatest gift God can give you: to understand what happened in your life. To have it explained. It is the peace you have been searching for.” Each person that he meets teaches him a different life lesson.

The lessons are real-life lessons we each should all learn to live by. They are moral. The first lesson is “that there are no random acts. That we are all connected. That you can no more separate one life from another than you can separate a breeze from the wind.” We are all interconnected.

The second lesson is sacrifice. “Sacrifice is part of life. It’s supposed to be. It’s not something to regret. It’s something to aspire to. Little sacrifices. Big sacrifices. A mother works so her son can go to school. A daughter moves home to take care of her sick father.”

The third lesson is forgiveness. The protagonist in the book, Eddie, had a rough relationship with his dad growing up. The section begins with “all parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged pieces, beyond repair.”

The fourth lesson is love. Eddie’s late wife is the one who shares this with him. “Lost love is still love, Eddie. It takes a different form, that’s all. You can’t see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around a dance floor. But when those senses weaken, another heightens. Memory. Memory becomes your partner. You nurture it. You hold it. You dance with it. Life has to end...Love doesn’t.”

The last lesson was the fulfillment of his life. An understanding that his life really did have a meaning, despite the mediocrity.

The thing is, each of these “lessons” do us no good once we’re dead. This is where I thank Albom for writing the story. He does an excellent job at creating a character that all men can identify with. A man who used to dream of being someone larger than he wound up being. At least in his own eyes. But in reality, he really was an important person. His life was intimately connected with so many others. He just couldn’t see it because in his mind, he wasn’t who he dreamed he could be.

Stories

I mentioned a few days ago that I was going to use a book to help build my story for a legacy for my kids.

That being the case, the first question posed is “if your ancestors emigrated from another country, from where did they come? When? How did they come? Where did they settle and why?

I have absolutely no idea about my ancestors. I don’t know about their emigration statuses. I don’t know about their past countries. I simply know nothing about my ancestors.

Sorry kids! Your dad is ignorant here.

But this really brings up a good question for me. I mean, since I was born in America and my parents were born in America and my grandparents (on both sides) were born in America, am I a native American? I mean, I know for a fact that I’m (at least) a third generation American. At what point does one become a native to the land and culture? And if I’m not a native American, then what am I?

It seems to me that we all want to be so particular and politically correct that we’re willing to throw out logic and sense in our terms. Why can’t we simply come up with something that makes sense. For those of American Indian descent, let’s tag them with ”American Indians.“

Or better yet, let’s throw them out completely and call them human.

Just like me.

And just like you.

Why do we have to classify people by race? or creed? or anything else? I mean, where’s the love in doing that? Why can’t we just all get along?