A Moment of Memory and Lament

I had posted this photo when I first returned to the blog. No one was reading then, so I can post it again and not be redundant.

These items are all from my great-grandparents on my father's side, the Hurds. I managed to acquire things belonging to his family from the grandmother before she died and then from my parents home after Kate died. My mother's personality disorder caused alienation on both sides of the family, which makes the fact she ended up with so much of his family's possessions strange. I guess my grandmother had affection for my father despite my mother.

This was my great-grandfather Hurd's secretary. My grandmother, Blanche, gave it to my parents a few years before she died. Blanche had four sons so I don't know why to my dad.

I got to know Blanche a year before her death. I started driving to her house to visit. She always had spumoni ice cream, even though she was a Type 1 diabetic, and I loved spumoni. She was a refined and regal woman, she had lovely things and she started giving some of it to me, such as fine porcelain demitasse cups and sterling silver spoons that went with them. Most were from her parents, she was an only child. She also was a once divorced woman, unheard of in her time. She had some privilege in her life. She let me choose books from her library, figurines from her cabinets, just lots of different things.

I did a family tree on Ancestry a few years ago. Both sides of my father's family came from England, but both sides had been in America forever. I stopped looking when I got to the early 1700s. I didn't know my father's family. I knew some of my mother's family in my early years, but they all took a hike, other than one cousin and my grandma. The grandfather died when I was four. Biologically I have a large family somewhere, but in reality I grew up in a very small family. Now, it's my son and I.

It's startling the amount of damage one person can do to the lives of many. Of course, that person couldn't do it all alone without the cooperation of the other person in the equation. My family isn't unique, but it's mine and it's what I know. Over the past two years my small family has been navigating the turbulent waters of healing. It's a journey to be taken in small, steady strokes, not expecting arrival at the destination anytime soon. 

I had no intention of writing this when I sat down. As it came out of my finger tips, I let it flow. Excuse my indulgence.