Although I sometimes write about the golden days of youth, here in the wintertime of my years, I am no Pollyanna who sees the world through rose-tinted glasses. The warm fuzzies of nostalgia can do only so much to warm my spirit and plaster over the reality that makes me admit that I am growing old with dwindling energy and connectivities. Too soon, too soon, and I don’t like it one bit!
However, when I get in gloomy moods like this I remind myself of the words of Henry David Thoreau who made an experiment in living as simply as possible by withdrawing for two years to a little shack on the banks of Walden Pond:
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear . . . I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.
Living is dear, is it not? I do not consider myself a wise woman, but regardless of the sadness, isolation and obstacles that we all encounter, I don’t want to dig a spiritual grave and prematurely throw my precious life into it. The birds and beasts have little choice in their lives as they are governed by instinct, but we humans can choose. I am discovering that if one is receptive, if one consciously chooses to make an effort to overcome, one will have golden days that enrich one’s being. Here’s a story that warms my heart:
A couple of years ago, I had an e-mail from a Brian Kelly. “Do you know a Victoria Personette?” “She’s my daughter. Are you by any chance the son of my deceased Knightstown cousin, Brian Kelly?” “I am his grandson!” I was only vaguely aware of his existence and that of his sister, Amber, both of whom grew up in Knightstown.
Vicki, Tom and Cousin Wayne Kelly met Brian and his wife for lunch in Fort Wayne, as Bill and I did another time. Meanwhile, Amber and her husband, Aaron, came to our house for dinner during Wayne’s visit, and we had dinner at their house and see them occasionally. Both couples came to our Golden Anniversary celebration. Getting to know these young people has been one of the great pleasures of my elder years.
Vicki and Wayne have done a lot of delving into the history of our Clinton Co. ancestors, using Ancestry.com. They formed an e-mail connection with a distant Kelly cousin, Joan. Wayne and his wife even went on a cruise with her.
Vicki put together a pilgrimage to The Old Home Place that was settled near Michigantown in the early 1800’s by our pioneer ancestors, the cemetery where they were buried and other cemeteries. Joan flew in on October 10 from Charlotte, North Carolina. We were immediately drawn to each other. We even saw a resemblance between her and the picture of an ancestress.
On Saturday Joan, Vicki and I drove up to the Clinton Co. Library in Frankfort. My first cousin, Carole Kelly Pittman who was raised in Knightstown and whom I hadn’t seen for several years met us. I had never met her niece Victoria, the daughter of Cousin Mike Kelly, and Victoria’s fifteen-year-old son, Bryant. One of Joan’s cousins came from Missouri.
The library’s genealogy section is excellent, and they were swept up in fervent, satisfying genealogical conversations as they perused books of old deeds and histories. Afterwards, we went to lunch before going on to the cemeteries and The Old Home Place. As Jan Karon wrote, the bread we broke together was more than bread. It was the bonds of kinship being established among a group of strangers. wclarke@comcast.net