Changes and Endings

Changes and endings follow us through age. Marriage, divorce, children, grandchildren, death, and disease all work to stir our emotions. First love to loss, anger and hurt can lead us on different paths. Friendship and love guides through tough times and the wondrous moments.

Seeing the Grand Canyon was amazing. Stepping from the subway to see Rome finally was a dream I didn't know I had. The adoration for my grandchildren and their amazement in life leaves me breathless. Their selfless love for me has created new life and meaning. Friends of old reach out and new ones appear for support in aging. Everyday, flowers and the wind and butterflies soothe my heart in the goodness of the world. I speak with God daily knowing that he loves me and accepts me as I am. Younger life of wildness and hurt slip away as does time. Summer moons light the night in mystery without fear. And the sunlight moves me to feel life in this place I live.

For 14 years, I planned and led our Howard family reunion in Eastern Kentucky. The reunion began as a way to see family other than at funerals. In those early years, many family members attended. We renewed acquaintance with cousins from a childhood visiting my grandmother Maudie. She was the person who led us in love and to God. We were each her favorite. Grandmother was our connection between a family of six siblings and children. She also shared stories about her parents, grandparents and ancestors long gone. They live in our memory

We met new cousins and distant. Mother’s cousin Joe gave the best hugs and called me baby doll. He is always in my heart. His Sutton family attended for several years and we talked of the old folks. As the years went by new babies joined our family. We also lost family. That changed the dynamic of the reunion. Children were unable to visit because the loss was too hard to bear. Carl and Ruby Marshall were neighbors we knew after Maudie married Callie Joseph and lived at Burning Fork. They are both gone but their son Rick still comes to see us. We have lost mothers and husbands and some to Alzheimer's and ages of 92. Attendees catch us up on their children and jobs and the remember whens. Over the last few years, I have become friends with Hazel Shepherd and her family. They live at Grandmothers homeplace at the Head of Licking in Magoffin County. She has lived there now longer than Grandmother did. Gary and I visit the Howard Cemetery there and then stop to see her. Hazel knew my family and is a distant cousin. She remembers when my baby sister Sandra died and the burial service in the front yard for my grandfather Callie in 1958 preached by brother in law Henry Mullins. When her children go to Walmart, they take her along and she sits in her walker by the checkout and visits with friends or others who talk with her. Hazel gives a lot of good advice taken from a rough life in the mountains. What a great life Hazel has now with devoted bossy children and pet chickens and ponies and a view of the wooded mountains from her childhood and mine. Her daughter Sadie brings her to the reunion along with special candy she makes and fresh green beans and tomatoes which she grows in a garden on her other place. Most of the produce is given to residents on the road home.

Two years ago, Angie said she would take the reunion over. The preparation became too much for me to handle. She has help from Tamara and Ruth as I did. I couldn't handle the stress of getting people to play bingo and gather for the family photos. Some people come to just sit. Others readily join in the auction to raise funds for the hall rental and cemetery upkeep. Sister Leah always brings a quilt for a raffle creating great excitement and money. The winner now wears it parading for all to see. Tamara prints the family tree chart listing Grandmothers descendants. She gets the info from me and of course I always have a wrong date for someone. I take several books I have created with descendant and ancestor photos. It is fun to see old photos and to decide who you might resemble.

As the years have passed, fewer people attend. Reasons are health, age, distance and the infamous family vacation or the I don't feel like going. It is one day of the year!  When I was young, our vacation was traveling from Ohio to visit Grandmother. While there, we saw other relatives and visited the places in Kentucky that my parents knew from younger days. Those names and scenes are still ingrained in my mind. Their memories transferred to me. Nowadays families take their own trips to Myrtle Beach, The Smokey Mountains, and Florida. Their little families are the focus, and many children hardly see aunts and uncles or cousins. Families are smaller. In the future, if there is a reunion, it might consist of a brother and sister with spouses and four cousins who barely know each other.

My family's closeness comes from those times that we visited on Sunday and played together. Then, there was no trip to the amusement park or a $300 birthday party. Our social life was family.

My generation still has friends who sit and talk. All the kids are on an IPhone to see what others are doing.

I miss the porch talk when I was amazed at what my grandchildren had to say.

Families are smaller than ever but farther apart. As I age, I see the loss of connection among members.

Change and endings. We must learn to be alone.