Catching Idle Butterflies

Updates and Personal Journeys

Although Grandma had quite a scare the night before last, to the point she scared the doctor and herself, she's doing wonderful! She's breathing easier, and is still in high spirits. We spent a few hours with her as we shared stories and much laughter. The doctors won't say yet when she can leave the hospital, which is good, we do have a date to play Dominos the moment she gets home. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. I know they helped.

Speaking of telling stories, and the rampant nostalgia chasing chickens out of Blogville over the last couple of days, here's more Grandma wisdom:

Grandma Wood’s first book begins, in part, with this:

Carol gave me a blank book entitled, “Mom, Share Your Life With Me,” and shortly after I received another from Janeen called, “Grandma, Tell Me Your Memories.”

Well, I guess it’s “Share and Tell” time, so here goes . . .

. . . Remember Aesop’s fable about the blind men who examined an elephant and each came up with an entirely different description? I’m sure that’s the way my yarns will be received, too. Everyone remembers these episodes in their own way, but this collection is strictly from my point of view.

My advice to you is to write down the details of unusual or important moments and file them away for the time your grandchildren ask about your life. Then your stories will be accurate instead of vague memories.

I want to share a few quotes with you from fellow Blogville citizens:

“I don't know what's so compulsive about nostalgia, except that for someone like me, who never lived one place for very long until my present home, nostalgia is the nearest I have to roots.”

~Mavis Moog

“Nostalgia is not the sad, unhappy, depressing memories of our past. Simply recalling the way things were can make us feel nostalgic or melancholic – and that’s not because the memories themselves are sad. Nostalgia makes us feel sad because of the realization that those memories and events are part of our history. They refer to a time and a place that we can never revisit – they are gone and can never be relived, except in our memory. For me that realization is the saddest part of nostalgia, but it’s not nostalgia.”

~ zwisis

As we go through life, as we live it, we don’t normally see the historical importance, not just to our family's succeeding generations, but to all who come after. History books rarely convey the beauty, the horror; the raw emotions of living through great and terrible events. Children are left with mere when, why and how things happened. They are the facts without the experiences, and the chances of those events ‘sticking’ with them are lessened.

I am one of these people who don’t see the significance of my life for the future. What possible contributions can I make now, in my mere 36 years of life to future generations? That’s really not the point. When the time comes when the past needs to be remembered for others, will I remember vividly what happened, or vaguely?

Taking a quick look back, I still have vivid recollections of the Challenger shuttle explosion, when President Regan was shot, Desert Storm, 9/11, the fall of Bagdad, Hurricanes Rita and Katrina. And those are just off the top of my head. Will I recall those events 20 even 50 years from now if I live that long? Not likely. What also about my family who simply want to know me, how Dave and I lived our lives? Will I recall those cherished memories well enough others will cherish them as well?

If I am to die tomorrow, what of my life will I have left behind as far as my memories and experiences? Not much.

So why not start writing down the events in my life, both small and great for untold futures to enjoy and learn from?

I have been wondering what to do with my as yet empty journals, because I couldn’t think of any subject worthy of the permanence those journals would give me.

Perhaps now I do.