Photo by Nicole De Khors
I just returned from Florida to attend my uncle’s funeral. He was 95 years old and totally devoted to family. He leaves a huge gap for all who knew and loved him. I may write about him someday but right now I am still processing his passing.
In Florida, I saw and connected with relatives I hadn’t seen in years. All of us used to live in Rhode Island but now we are spread out in different parts of the country. Of course, we still share our connection as well as beautiful family memories. If only we could all live near each other once again. Fortunately, I keep in touch with many of them through Facebook and feel they are still a part of my life.When I saw my cousins’ children, whom I hadn’t seen since they were toddlers, I instantly recognized them because we share pictures and tidbits of our lives on Facebook.
No, this isn’t a Facebook ad. I only want to emphasize how much I appreciate the blessing of connecting with family even though we are all busy and live in different places.
Actually, I have been steeped in memories of relatives for the past few years. You see, another uncle has been occupying my thoughts. In my next novel, one of the characters is afflicted with leukemia. This beloved uncle passed away from this disease in 1983 and while writing the story, my thoughts kept turning back to him, his wife, their sons, the sons’ wives and the grandchildren. Memories of family Thanksgivings, cookouts, and other get-togethers have been on my mind. While I was growing up it never dawned on me these days would end and we would all move on to new stages in our lives, no longer having opportunities for visits throughout the year. I cherished these memories while writing, even though my novel has fictional characters that have no connection with my relatives.
This is one of the reasons I find writing so rewarding. Though my uncle’s leukemia was a tragedy for him and our family, writing the story has returned me to those days. When we all got together, my sisters and I would take turns sitting on my uncle’s lap and he would shower us with attention. When one of his sons had a daughter, my uncle would light up whenever he saw her and she became the center of his existence. He loved to joke and I remember his wide, generous smile and the good feeling all of us had to be around him. His wife, my father’s sister, was sweet and whomever she was speaking to, she made that person feel they were the most interesting and important person to her. She was smart and talented and always down-to-earth. For years she looked like she never aged. Like her husband, the family was everything to her.
In my next novel, I emphasize the importance of family above personal ambitions and individual pursuits. Life with its unexpected twists and turns doesn’t always go as planned and there can be much heartbreak and disappointment along the way. But I strove to make the responsibility of caring and supporting loved ones paramount while on life’s journey, modeled after my own family and relatives. Truly, our memories are what makes us.