Storytelling
Grania on Nov 24 2009 at 10:59 pm | Filed under: home sweet home
Being born into the timeline that I was in my own family gave me a unique opportunity. My birth came later in my parents life. My mom was the age that I am now (43) when she had me. My dad a year older. This meant a couple of things. The first was that I am the baby of 18 or so first cousins. My oldest cousin is 20 years older than I am. His children are barely younger than me. It took a long time for me to feel like I was a grown up among my first cousins. I spent more time with their kids than I did with them.
The second thing that my coming into my family 20 years later than I should have, is that most of my elderly relatives were already gone, or died when I was a child. I don’t have the history with my grandparents that most kids have. My maternal grandfather, who homesteaded in the Wild West when it really was wild, died before I was born. My only real memories of his wife are visiting her at the nursing home. She died when I was 5 or 6. My dad’s mom was not a happy woman. I remember visiting her sometimes on the way home from church on Sundays, but I only really have one good memory of her at Christmastime and she died when I was 7. My dad’s father hung in there the longest. I was 17 when he passed, but he lived so far away, I only really saw him for a few days every summer, inbetween other camping activities.
I can tell you many amazing stories about all of these people, but they all come to me second hand from my older cousins that had relationships with my grandparents. My own experiences with them are mostly shaded by the naive innocence of childhood. A lot of smiles and playing, but not a lot of substance as far as getting to know someone.
Because of this, and having already lost most of my family, I’ve made a point over the last couple of decades of getting close to my now 91 year old aunt. She was born right before women got the right to vote. Think about the amount of history that’s happened between then and now. She’s got great stories to tell.
She’s my last direct connection to my parent’s generation. I could sit with her for weeks and listen to her talk about growing up, and each of the cousins that she knew that I never met.
As I’ve gotten older, history in general, and how my family fared through all of the major events of the 20th century interests me to no end.
Roomie has a lot of stories of his own, and it’s neat to get that angle of things too. He’s traveled the world, and has his own unique perspective. He’s a great storyteller, and we’ve spent many evenings pondering things about the life and times that he’s lived.
Sometimes, compared to my aunt, or roomie, I feel like I lead a small life. I’ve only lived in 4 separate places, all within 25 miles of where I was born. But I have my own stories. I’ve told a few of them here, and I always get good feedback. I’ve pondered, off and on, writing a book. This blog was kind of the test market for that. For now though, I’ll just keep writing my stories, in no particular order, whenever they come to me. I enjoy storytelling and I’ll keep doing it while I think up other stories to tell. .
