Family History

The weekend before the Fourth of July I went to Ohio to visit my sister.  It has been a busy spring and summer and usually if I have time to travel my husband and I will go to Nashville to see our grandson (Ronan the Magnificent).  So the week of the July 4th holiday I took some time off and wanted to visit my sister and just "chill" for a while.  I had a list of projects I wanted to get done during my time off. 

For the last few years when I have visited my sister the visit usually included seeing our parents who were both in assisted living and later my mother who was in a nursing facility the final few years of her life.  Our parents have both passed on so this time we decided to visit the cemetery where they are buried.   I had not been to the cemetery, except for a burial for many years.  Our mother, as did many in her generation, purchased several burial plots many years ago.  It was at the time our biological father died in the late 1950's.  So he is buried there as well as our maternal grand parents.  Later our step-father and finally our mother joined the group after they passed on. 

The cemetery is lovely and serene, with rolling hills and beautiful grounds.  There are no monuments but all of the headstones are set in the ground so all you see when you look across the landscape is grass, trees, shrubbery and the occasional urns with flowers.  When our mother bought the plots she especially liked the fact that it looked like just rolling hills with no statuary. 

So my sister and I took some time to clean up the graves. She had already done some of the work but we completed the clean up and then just stood and talked about our common history 

One sadness that we both shared is that almost all of the people who can connect us to our past are now gone.  We have one uncle who is still living but the generation that is older than us is quickly passing on.  I know that is the "circle of life" yet as I realize that we are becoming the older generation I'm not sure if I am up to the task. 

Older people carried the family history in their heads.  They could tell you about the people in your family who were wonderful and those who were scoundrels.  They were able to connect you to all your extended family and were the keepers of history.  I know that I am not that person.  So as time goes on my son and grandson will know less and less about our history and family.  I'm not sure how to make that better or change how time is moving on.  It's just sad.