Memories...

OH! Remember the day that happened????

Nothing is more fun than sharing memories with my sisters or my dad of when we grew up. Childhood memories are the only things holding us together these days it seems. Our families are growing and we are busier than ever. Our locations have changed over the years and the once a year family gathering doesn't always include all of us. So the times when we can get together I usually try to turn the talk to memories of some kind. The ties that bind...

My Grandpa kept a diary all his life. It was usually a little tiny Moleskine notebook - one each year-  with space for like 2 lines for each day!  Earlier diaries had a two-page spread and you had to squeeze all your words into little tiny lines... No room for extra thinking there! Later notebooks had a page for each day. The writing is cryptic with lots of initials to decode but even the little bit he wrote each day is a treasure to me.

Grandpa's diaries - one for each year

1945 Diary - one page spread per week!

I recently looked up my birthdate in Grandpa's diary for 1957 - there you now know how old I am!
Heartwarming to read about that day according to my Grandpa...

"R (my dad) came at 4.10 (that's a.m.) to announce arrival of Debbie Ruth (me) at 2:30. Up 7. to Sc as usual. We went to P.C. (port credit) P.O. (post office) & A&P (grocery store) shopping. Home & spreading manure till noon. After lunch had sleep on patio in sun. Ada went to hosp. to see Pat & the new baby. I spread more manure then over to Sc for usual work. Ada joined me & did washing. After supper we went to Hassell & got some plants. Took Elwood home. Got more plants at greenhouse by W's. then to Lundgreens for some more. Found S fam. had been here while we were out. Ada (Grandma) phone D. re baby. Lil Wright & Marjorie Dudgeon here for nearly an hour. Reading. Bed 11:50.

Fair warmer."




Can't imagine my kids being so excited about their firstborn that they woke me up at 4:30 a.m. to tell me! It's so nice my Grandpa captured that and that I can "see" that excitement of my dad - all these years later. My Grandma visited my mom every day in the hospital and many days after I was home too. My mom's mother had passed away a few years before. I was not Grandma's first grandbaby. She had MANY by then, but she went over and helped my mom out - and probably held me and fed me on those visits. Awww.... I feel loved even now.

Even though he only wrote a little bit each day, there's a lifetime of memories I can read years later.

When I started writing in my journal I only wrote about MY events. I try to include more details since I read Grandpa's diaries. There are so many questions I ask my dad or ones I wish I could ask Grandpa. And, after reading a few of Grandpa's journals I started writing about what all the members of my family happened to be doing that day. And sometimes I will include photos in my computer journal.  My life is not just about me but it's also about my family and my interactions with them. Maybe they'll be like me and will love to read and recall the days we did this or that. Will like to read about their Grandparents in my journal and their cousins or their friends of long ago?

I've missed a lot of those things from their very early years but I'm trying to catch them now - because I know how valuable my Grandpa's memories are to me... I hope my memories and family stories will be valued by my kids down the road...

What about you? Are you writing with a mind that someone down the road might WANT to read about your daily events and get to know you in a way they could never have known you in person? Will you tell the family stories in your journal? Have you got some family stories that are precious that need to be remembered?