Appreciation

Like Beth, I would have to say my parents. We so seldom appreciate our parents, and certainly not to the level that we should, while they are still with us. There is the idea that they will always be with us until they aren't.

 

I agree with the appreciation of parents, and in that same vein, family history, that I never gave another thought to when I was young.
Both of my parents were born in the early 1900’s, and approaching middle age when I was born (only child). I was raised with the morals and ethics of that early generation, and much loved by both of my parents.
Even though my mom and dad were both into their 80’s when they passed away, it was still the most devastating thing in my life, and after losing them, the pictures and family memories became a treasure to me.

I remember my mom telling me the stories of her childhood, living in Texas, and riding to school in a buckboard, and the driver having to fight off the Texas Longhorns with his bull whip, while the children all huddled in the bottom of the wagon.
The Navaho girl who was her friend when my grandfather was an Indian Agent in Arizona, and she gave my mother an engraved silver bracelet that mom wore all of her life.
The little girl’s last name was Begay, and now I have earned that this family are renowned Navaho silversmiths, and wondering if it is the same family as my Mom knew when she was a child ?

As I go through the old pictures, there are some that I remember, and some that I can only guess at, and I have been trying to piece things together to go with the remembered stories.
How badly I have wished that I could hear those old family stories just one more time, and ask my parents all of the questions that I didn’t know to ask back when I was young.