Time

Time is something that has fascinated man from the very first. Time is usually broken into past, present and future. It is hard sometimes to think of the past without thinking of “if only.” On the day Mom died, in that first moment of shock after my brother’s phone call, I remember saying that I should have gone home when Mom didn’t answer the phone. That I might have saved her. My boss held me and told me that I didn’t know that. My friend Suzette drove me home that day. Of course I now know that it wouldn’t have made any difference. Mom died in the early hours of the morning and it was instantaneous. Our past shapes our present and our present shapes our future. In looking through Mom’s photo albums today trying to find a picture for my niece I came upon these late 1800’s early 1900’s pictures of my Mom’s family.

There is a picture of my Great Grandmother and Grandfather Hughes. Did they ever wonder about the past when their families came over from Ireland? There are two pictures of my Great Grandfather Hensley, one taken at a Civil War Veterans reunion. Did he ever wonder why this nation had to tear itself apart in the Civil War? There is a picture of my Great Grandmother Hensley who was pure blooded Cherokee. She was adopted by a white family and raised as white. Did she ever wonder why her people’s land had been taken from them and why they thought she had to be raised as white? There is a picture of my Grandmother Hughes and two of her sisters. Did they wonder if there was a life for women that didn’t just consist of being a housewife?

Time. We exist in it. We fight with it. We dream in it. Sometimes we have to stop and look back and say I did the best I could in the past. I was the best caregiver I could be to my Mom. I know that the present is painful now but I also know that the future will ease the ache like it has eased the ache of Dad’s death. I just need to give myself time and in the annuals of time two months is such a short period. But right now in the present I realize I need to get these old pictures scanned into the computer or we will loose the images of that past. That past made my mother. I also have pictures from my Dad that need to be scanned too. In the past is my present and in the present I am making my future. That future will try and keep alive memories of the past.