Reaching back

[michaelboy]

This is the grave of my great great grandparents - through the maternal branch of my lineage. Isaac was a civil war veteran and only lived into his fifties. Tabitha lived significantly longer. I know very little about them other than a few newspaper citations from the early 1900's of her visiting with family. I wish I knew something more about them.

* * *

One of our hospice patients is 99. She is gracious, intelligent and a great conversationalist. It's incredible to me that she graduated from high school in 1945 and graduated from a state university around 1950 - long before I was born. Both her mother and grandmother graduated from the same university as well, with her grandmother being only one of the only two women graduates in 1897.

I'm always in awe of her and her roots...such a beautiful and powerful lady. She owned a newspaper and acted as an editor and writer for the paper for many years as well. Her vision is failing, so sometimes we'll read articles or other writings.

One we shared recently:

"I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them, or touch any one,
or rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment—what is this, then?
I do not ask any more delight—I swim in it, as in a sea.
There is something in staying close to men and women, and looking on them,
and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well;
All things please the soul—but these please the soul well."
From: I Sing the Body Electric , Walt Whitman

Each week, when we leave, she reaches from her wheelchair for our hands, to express gratitude. Yet, I feel like I'm actually the lucky one.

Comments

[mallorys_camera]

She sounds wonderful.

[michaelboy]

She is! Saw her again today.

[ofearthandstars]

Such a beautiful ode to what sounds like a lovely person. It sometimes feels like people just aren't quite made like they used to be, but also, maybe we just live in a world that seems to amplify that, when in reality, we're surrounded by amazing people and don't even realize it.

[serafaery]

I love this entry, thank you for sharing. I have similar feelings about ancestors, and also of being in awe of elders. I don't know anyone who is 99, but I know several folks in their 80s and it's funny, I went on and on and on about how and why the ladies I sparkle who are in their 70s are my favorite to my therapist during our last session, and he sat stunned and in awe for not a short amount of time, and then mentioned that this seemed to contradict what I had just stated earlier - that I felt I had a hard time telling people how/why I care about them. He's right. I don't, actually. Only once in a while do I get tripped up on this, when I'm stunned by someone's wisdom and kindness and generosity and fail to say so out loud. Most of the time, I blurt it out eagerly, because they are too wonderful to not share the effect they have on me, regardless of how raw and unprocessed my words might seem in the moment when I am blubbering my appreciation :)

[serafaery]

Also the Walt Whitman piece is so lovely. :)

[michaelboy]

Awww, blurt away lovely young lady! And I'm always amazed what I learn when I'm around my elders :)