Once again

  The first day of December in the year 2020. I have to say it's been a long year thus far but the end is now in sight. Just like I do most mornings I turn on this computer and check my e-mail. post Good Morning on Facebook and look at my "memories" page on Facebook too. I'm always interested to see what I was posting and talking about a year or more ago. I find I'm consistent. That sounds better than saying, I repeat myself a lot. I'm saying we seniors do that so we don't forget. learning by rote? Well, that's what I wrote anyway. And this morning a picture taken sixty years ago appeared once more in  my memories. And once again I shared it to my timeline. Apparently that line is a lot longer than I think. Although I am fully aware of the age of that picture. the fact that it was sixty years ago came as a bit of a surprise. Six decades? 

 I am four years old in that picture, my sister six, brother Dan eight and brother Harold ten. Grandmother Bennett, born in March of 1884 is 73. Out of that group only brother Dan and myself remain. Grandmother Bennett passed in March of 1972 a few days short of her birthday. Her last Christmas would have been in 1971. I was away attending a service school for the U.S. Navy. My eldest brother Harold passed on December 19th, 2014. Hard to believe six years have passed. And my sister Millie also passed in December, on the 4th, in 2018, this will my second year without her. All those thoughts rushed through my mind when I saw that picture once again and realized sixty years had passed. But I also feel like they are all still here with me at times. Truth is, they are, for each one of them contributed to who I am. I can't take credit for creating myself, it is those that loved me that influenced who I became. I am still receiving that influence today, from them and from others still here with me today. Our memories are our resource, our guide. From Grandmother Bennett I learned patience and acceptance. If ever there was a woman that possessed those qualities it was her. Brother Harold taught confidence. A man filled with self confidence and self assurance. An indominable spirit. And from my sister, I learned a gentleness of spirit, a soft spoken firebrand, a contradiction at times. The most loving and giving of people I have ever known. 

 Sixty years having passed I am in possession of that photograph. A trust. Pictures of my grandmother are a rare thing indeed. Most likely taken with my father's box style camera. A Kodak camera I believe with that big flash shield fastened to the side. I remember my father wetting the end of the flashbulb by sticking it in his mouth before screwing it into place. A blue tinted bulb that crackled when it flashed and was very hot to handle afterward. Dad would take it out and toss to us kids like a hot potato. That would be the only time grandmother Bennett was at my house. She seldom left her own home. So, yes it was a very special occasion to have her there. I wasn't aware of it then but now I realize she was the greatest Christmas present of all. Being only four I don't really remember much about that visit. I only have that fading black and white photograph to remind me. Truth be told I remember the picture more than the event. Nana, as we called her would have been 136 this year. My brother and sister having joined her perhaps they are sitting around a Christmas tree. I like to think they are anyway. I'm thinking heaven will be whatever you want it to be. 

                                                                          

Dan, Harold, Grandma, Ben, Millie