someone to ask

  I try to write something different but when you are writing what is on your mind you tend to repeat yourself. Seems to happen more often the older you get. I suppose that is simply because we face the same things in life over and over again. That is we experience the same emotions only under different circumstances. That's the human condition. The way we feel so to speak. Today there is much discussion about mental health, a subject not often discussed when I was younger. Mental health, the way we deal with emotions. That's what I think it is and I don't think you need a Doctorate to understand that. For me that's on the same level as those professing some secret knowledge about abstract art, yeah, if you say so. But some folks take comfort in all of that and it seems to make some folks feel better, no harm, no foul I say. Yes you can become depressed, obsessed, manic, and a host of other maladies, all emotions out of control. And man attempting to discover the causes. Drugs are often used to suppress emotions whether they are prescribed or self medicated. But I'm wandering of a bit from what is on my mind this morning.

  Yesterday I was telling my wife stories about my childhood. I was telling her about the neighbors I had and what colorful characters they were. Now we didn't say such things as we celebrated their differences or talk about acceptance and inclusion, none of that. We just took people for what we perceived them to be. That's right, what we perceived them to be regardless of what they felt they were. I'd say it was more of an honest relationship. No one was putting on airs. My wife never had an opportunity to meet any of those folks. She grew up in a different state, a different city altogether. I know little of her childhood and have only met a few of those she grew up with. Now she doesn't tell nearly as many stories about her childhood as I do. I can't say why that is, just that it is. Anyway I enjoy telling the tales, describing those folks as it is almost like visiting with them. They are very much alive to me, although I'm certain the vast majority have long since passed on, as the saying goes. Funny how we say that, the reality for me is I have left them behind as they are all in the past. A matter of perception I suppose. 

  I was telling my wife about this particular neighbor, a lady I called Aunt Francis. She was not related to me at all, at least not that anyone was aware of. I wouldn't be surprised to find that she was some distant relative however, hers was an old family in the town where I was born. But anyway, this woman sure had some funny ways about her. Really I suppose she was just old fashioned and stuck in her ways. She was like a pioneer woman in my eyes. She would hunt squirrels in her yard, skin and eat them for dinner. She made dandelion wine, sewed her own clothes, go fishing and pick up potatoes out of farmers fields. She taught me a tea bag should be used at least three times, and paper towels were nothing but a waste of money. She wore bloomers which would be hung on the clothesline, along with everything else. And she surely was the model for those yard ornaments you see today. She would bend over at the waist, never bending her knees, to pick dandelions or pull weeds. Walking up you would see those bloomers hanging down below her dress. I can see and hear her talking to this day. 

  In telling the stories about her I couldn't remember a certain detail. I realized at that moment, there is no one left to ask. That is the emotion I'm feeling this morning, the one often repeated these days. Definitely a result of getting older! It's just an unimportant little detail, a simple question, but a piece now missing. I can't be the only one left that knew her from those days. Surely there are others but I'm not aware of anyone. She didn't have children of her own. She only said God hadn't seen fit to give her any and that is all she ever said about that. She did take a liking to my sister and left her everything she owned. She told us all about that explaining she had a sister but her sister had enough already. Her wish to give my sister her home, car, and the contents of the house. In that way my sister wouldn't be dependent upon no man! She never explained that reasoning just that it was the reason. She had been married for many years herself but who knows what she was thinking. No matter though. And no, that isn't the detail I can't remember. I was trying to remember if she ever had a washing machine. I don't remember her having one, but she could have. An insignificant detail but no one left to ask, and that is what I'm writing about. 

  It's something that was just brought to the forefront once again and I expect it accompanies the loss of friends and relatives. Mom would have known the answer to that question or my sister for certain. I can't ask either one of them. I find myself reminiscing about the old days and the people that where in my life. Stories told as best as I remember. I find it a responsibility, to tell the stories as accurately as I can remember. It's difficult when there are no other resources except your memory. When there is no one left to ask. I believe that is the reason writing was invented in the first place, to tell the story. It began with a simple drawing on the wall. As accurate a description as they could manage. I feel that responsibility as well. Yes, I could embellish, delete, or simply fabricate any story I want, no one left to dispute them, and that is the responsibility. It's a portion of your moral character. Doing the right thing even when no one is looking, and telling the truth even when there is no one to dispute it. Same thing in my thinking. 

  You have a responsibility to history. Each of us do. History should be recorded as accurately as possible, void of bias and opinion. That's a difficult thing to do, perhaps an impossibility, but the attempt should be made. We are all riddled with prejudice and perceptions. I don't believe we can free ourselves from that but we can be made aware of it. No one likes to tell of their mistakes, their errors in judgement without somehow justifying those. Some will use them as a crutch and seek sympathy because of those missteps. I see that a lot these days. I say you can't create a crisis, overcome that crisis, and then proclaim victory. Correcting your mistakes isn't an accomplishment to be rewarded! It's nothing to brag about. If you feel the need to brag, brag about what mistakes you haven't made. But I digress a bit. What I'm saying is this; when you are the last it is your responsibility to record the truth. Don't rewrite history. But then again can we all agree on history? That's doubtful. I suppose we just all want to have the last word until we do. At least that's the way I feel about it right now. Sure wish I had someone to ask.