#this ancient oral account/they left it for us in Mexico/to be preserved here'

[astrum-cipher]

i'm apparently the type of person to tear up at old poems :/

[teacherintransition]

A Heartbreaking Loss... How Are They to be Remembered?

When a loved one leaves us, it never a simple process; emotionally or pragmatically... it’s always bittersweet.

Memories or stuff? A balanced healing usually involves both.

Recently, my wife has endured the tragic loss of her mother. Annie was the 92 year old, always smiling, brilliant ray of sunshine matriarch of a family that stretched from the Gulf Coast, to the Red River border and was firmly settled here is East Texas. She was the last of a family of twelve brothers and sisters and raised many of their children with her own as well. Her immediate family included two daughters, a son, their spouses, seven grandchildren and six great grandchildren. Her health had been relatively good considering her age and she still lived alone in a little house in Lufkin. The fact that she was 92 escaped no one, but her loving demeanor and country wit was still a constant; so we knew the inevitable was coming, someday, but she was still ol’ Annie. The inevitable came in June, in her sleep, in her bed in her little house in Lufkin ... where she wanted to be.

I’ve lost both parents and a sister as well as two close friends who were brothers to me. In truth, my family didn’t have the close, loving reliance that Annie’s did ... I’d venture to say that few do... Nancy, Frank and Kim deeply loved and looked to their mother. It puzzled me how shocked and in disbelief they appeared when the time finally came, but then again my family relationships weren’t as sweet as was based more on logic than emotion. The immediate events following her passing kind of took care of themselves: funeral home, viewing, service, burial. One hurdle had been passed, but the little house in Lufkin sat quietly, filled with a lifetime of photos, cards, letters, Knick knacks and other “stuff.” I wrote stuff in quotation marks as stuff seems a shallow word when referring to a lifetime of memories and accumulated items.

Annie grew up country and she grew up poor of this our families had similar stories. Both Annie and my father’s family had nothing. Dad’s family sharecropped and lived in a hard scrabbled cabin part of which had been hollowed out of the mountain. Annie grew up in the Pollock area to a farming family in a home that lacked running water or electricity. She was born two years before the Great Depression, so the ensuing calamity was not overwhelming... when you have nothing ...you can’t lose nothing. As a consequence, Annie grew up holding onto everything, not even close to a miserly mindset, she held on to memories in any form. Stories, songs, photos, birthday cards, Christmas cards, newspaper clippings, funeral announcements, anything and everything that shared an event that meant something to her. In front of my wife and her siblings stood the daunting task of going through a lifetime of collecting. Nothing was overlooked and a story followed almost every item. The three of them would stop through mid organizing and engage in a twenty minute stroll down memory lane when they would come across a picture and a query started. “Who is that with Annie and Uncle Marvin?” .... then it was on... talk, tears and laughter. The material things were easy: couches, freezers, refrigerators, tables ...those things weren’t the treasure; it was the stuff in frames, on walls and put away in old shoe boxes that merited the attention. My mind works differently as our family was different. It could be frustrating to watch them go through the items, but in a way I was jealous that they could share so intimately and vividly as they worked their way through the life of Annie Laverne Hall.

Now the crux of this writing: how are people best remembered? I’m an historian and I know that our lives are fleeting instants through a constant flow of an infinitude of instants. The answers to the question of how we should/want to be remembered are as numerous as the stars and are likely to be free of any right or wrong, but most of us will be faced with this dilemma more than once. There is no implication to be made that Annie was a hoarder at all. She lived with the images of her life in close reach. She also didn’t turn away from adventure to account for her holding on to items of her life; her children gave her a wonderful life of travel for a country girl from Pollock. She lived in West Texas and East Texas, visited the gulf coast, traveled to Miami, Branson, the Grand Ol Opry, took cruises to Mexico, ate at fine restaurants in Houston and Dallas. Annie got around and it is a great source of pride to her children that they could do this for her.

There is a philosophical change afoot here in America and worldwide that stands in contrast to the mad accumulation of wealth and things from the 80’s. Much of this change stems from the fact economically the disparity between the haves and have nots has grown strikingly. Still, we live, we want happiness, we want joyous memories... thus the philosophical move towards, “accumulating experiences instead of things ... stuff.” My wife and I for the last ten years have approached life with this intent on our mind. We travel as much as we can and bring back fewer and fewer souvenirs, instead, we come back with stories shared with friends over a bottle of wine. I was once one of the many of legions of guys who would bring out the slide projector with slides of our last vacation to entertain guests. Thankfully, the internet and digitalization has made this practice a rarity. Through much study, I’ve reached the personal conclusion that orally sharing stories with friends and family harkens back to the ancient ways of sharing memories over a fire and a sharing of strong drink. Trinkets were part of the process and provided much insight into the lives of the people. We’re not playing archeologists here, just discussing how best to preserve the experiences we gather along a lifetime.

I have a couple of friends who took another approach: a concerted paring down of any material items. There are a number of reasons why one might take this approach: the previously mentioned experiences over things, a move away from mindless consumerism, a practice to be more environmentally sensitive all of which are sound reasons to “minimize” the tangible evidence of one’s existence. It need not be an extreme paring down on “stuff” most cultures live smaller and less ostentatiously focusing less on “keeping up with Jones’s.” There is an extreme to this path as negative as massive consumerism as I see took place with one of my friends mentioned previously. Without going into too much detail as this friend could create volumes of stories much like Annie. There was a feeling among many of this gentleman’s friends that it appeared as if he were removing himself from existence. His circle of friends became smaller and smaller, contact with family more and more rare. When he left this world, there was little left to prove he was here and fewer people who socialized with him on a regular basis. His choice... as I stated, the ways of being remembered are as countless as the stars. This approach, as valid as most others, I think comes from a place of hurt. As the saying goes, “no man is an island” and there obligations that many feel we have to stay a part of the lives of our families and true friends. There is always someone who needs us and they will remember if you were there or away.

Truth be told, the idea of remembering or being remembered can be a futile exercise in practicality and arrogance if pushed too far. All our hurts, worries, tears, adventures, laughter, loves all individually get washed away in what William Cullen Bryant called, “The Flood of Years.” Yet, that flood exists only with the countless droplets of living that we do daily. So, what then is the healthiest approach to take when sharing memories and memorials of our lives and loved ones? I strongly believe that it is a combination of both ... a path down the middle done in moderation. Pictures and knickknacks mean nothing if personal reflection doesn’t accompany them. A life not shared, stories not told with friends and family is often a self centered path where one thinks their existence is above others or not worth recounting... both of which are sad commentaries.

Annie didn’t concern herself with such high fa lootin’ thoughts. She was too busy loving and sharing and caring and spending time with her people and in this she will be remembered for what she gave each of us. We forge our own paths and thus lay the bricks for our own monuments... not necessarily to be seen but to be felt in the heart... and that is as close to eternity as I imagine one can get.

https://internetpoem.com/william-cullen-bryant/the-flood-of-years-poem/

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