There will come a time when all we know about someone will be our memories. Pictures may not do a memory justice because it’s a snapshot fixed in time. Audio and video have similar problems. They are not real, only samplings of a slice of time.
Click. Captured.
I woke early this morning thinking I could hear the dogs barking out in the backyard, about 3 acres away. Faint. Distant. But it wasn’t them. It was my waking memory of other times they had indeed been barking. Regardless, I often get out of bed and step into the kitchen to assure myself I was only “hearing things.”
Yes. My hearing is suspect, but I feel the noise was an actual event.
I could not get back to sleep. My mind drifted down pathways of sounds. We have a way of tuning out the background noise we are used to and listening for sounds we are unsure of their source or meaning.
Lost Voices
I began thinking about the voices we’ve lost during the past few years. I can hear my dad sing via technology, but it does not compare to the voice in my heart. When calling my sister, she often answered, “Hey, bro!” I’ll never have that experience again.
This week we say farewell to my uncle Henry. The last remaining sibling of the generation of “Gurley’s” before mine.
Can you say who you are within the framework of your family? Each of us is important. It’s good to make this connection between your past and your future.
I pause to ponder the genealogy of my family. Henry was the last of nine siblings to pass. He was the youngest. There were five girls, Lela, Edna, Velma, and Imogene, The four boys of that generation were Alton, George, Eugene, and Henry. All the girls had children, and though they are “Gurley” offspring, their last names include Ukemar, Welsh, Dickens, Brown, and Fleming. Of the boys, only my dad had children, Mike (me), Vaughn, Ken, and Teresa. Teresa’s kids are named Sweenhart, but we three boys had kids with the last names of Gurley.
Who am I? This came to me in a flash.
I am the oldest Gurley of the James and Leola Gurley Clan.
Who Am I: Can you say who you are within the framework of your family? Each of us is important. It's good to make this connection between your past and your future. Click To TweetDNA
Who am I? My DNA says I’m 100% Anglo-Saxon (I think that’s the correct set of words), whereas all my markers show I’m primarily from England and Northern Europe (Coast of France).
What a history my forebears must have had. I’ll never know much about it. There’s no voice speaking from the past to the future.
Who am I? I’m a speaker of my time, and I pray my voice will remain through my words and postings.
That’s All, Folks!