Family Flower

July 20th was my Nana's birthday.  She passed away this year but would have been 93.  She was my mom's mother and probably the grandparent I was closest to.  She told me many stories about growing up during the depression that I still remember to this day.  She was funny.  She had bizarre dreams (like sleeping dreams) that she would tell us about and make us laugh.  She loved dressing up and jewelry like I do. She was a Cardinal fan and golfed for a number of years.  I remember her making me laugh one Fourth of July when I was seven or eight and too sick with tonsillitis to watch the fireworks.  It's funny what kids remember, isn't it?  Her favorite flower was gladiolus.  I used to try to send her some on her birthday every year.

These are some of the things I remember best about her.  There were a lot of things I didn't know about her. I found myself thinking about my blog as her birthday drew nearer.  What if she had had something like a blog that I could read now?  Wouldn't that be something?  What if she'd kept a written record of every day life of things that were important to her or made her happy for me to read?

I recently got hooked on a new show on HBO that began as my favorite Game of Thrones was ending.  That's how it is with HBO.  They start up another great show just as your favorite is wrapping up, so you can never cancel your subscription.  The new show is Family Tree.  If you're a fan of Christopher Guest, this is his latest offering in the form of a T.V. series - a cross between Roots and This is Spinal Tap, if you can imagine such a mutant.  Tom Chadwick, the protagonist, is researching his ancestry and ends up finding all sorts of quirky characters.  No matter where the path for his ancestors takes him, whether it be Native American heritage or a Jewish cowboy from silent movies or a Civil War turncoat, he responds with, "That makes perfect sense!" and connects whatever new information he has ferreted out back to himself, even though his discoveries often turn out to be incorrect.

I don't know if I'll have grandchildren some day.  Who knows what will be invented by then?  But I hope the internet and my blog are still around if I do.  They don't need to know everything about me, but it will be nice if they can find some connection to me in themselves.  I think we're all looking for that in some way or another.  In the meantime, I've planted gladiolus bulbs in my backyard.

 

Kim