Grief, hope and memories

  

Great Aunt Emma and my big brother

Just this week I have had to say good-bye to an aunt, a great aunt, and a faithful canine.

Life is like a book. The stories may be wonderful or sad or horrid. The lives may be tedious or white knuckled frantic, homey and comfortable or strange and mysterious. And, like books, life has a page for each of us that say “the end.” I feel as though I have finished reading some amazing stories. When I read, mind you, I go into the book. I am a part of the story. I am breathless when it gets to “the end.” With a book I can read it over and over, but never will I again have the first feelings it gave to me. With these aunts and our old dear Coffee, I have memories but never again the same connections.

Coffee

am sad.

I am a Christian. My beliefs are in heaven and hope. But I don’t necessarily see heaven quite the way one might expect.  Angels, harps and clouds just don’t fit.

The thought my dear departed relatives playing a big ball game together up there is one of the best thoughts I have.  I can see our old dog chasing the ball, tumbling over in his haste and snatching it up for a wild game of keep away. Uncle Ray is running the babies around the diamond on his shoulders just like he did for mom when she was little and for me when I was.

When we were young, Maginitys and Johnsons were so often together that I never really knew or cared who was from which side of the family. Mom’s family and Dad’s family were neighbors and friends and classmates. My husband’s family and my family were friends and neighbors. There was a community back then that I sorely miss these days.

Oh, no, it was not a utopia. There were hard times and arguments and hurtful things.  I don’t really want to relive my childhood as much as I want to feel how I used to feel, that there was home and there was family and there was things that could be relied on.

I can recall my Grandpa’s voice and Great Uncle Rays, but I cannot hear my Dad’s voice any more. I know Grandma Maginity taught me to use china tea cups to drink tea from as a child but...

Grandma Maginity and my big sister

 I don’t remember her“her-ness”. I don’t know the right word. I can’t feel anything of her. I don’t remember much but things, and birds, and typing on her typewriter.

But I miss them; I miss them all fiercely and wildly. I still cry in secret for our family. For friend who have died early, needlessly. For changes that steal precious things from me. For having to keep a good face on things and keep on living when all I really want to do is hide.

Ward and Ruth Maginity

I have been identified most of my life by being Ward and Ruth Maginity’s daughter. This identity is changed now, and I am more myself. I am Tom’s wife, but I am me. That is a lonely thing, too.

I don’t know if this makes sense to you, my friends and those who stumble on this blog.  I guess all I am saying in this blog is that grief continues, life happens and as a result, death happens. Memories are to be re-examined, re-read like a much beloved book and savored. Hope is to be clung to at all costs.

And, "the end" is just another beginning after all.