Now I Have Questions

I think I missed the move between the kid’s end of the table and the old folks end of the table at Thanksgiving. How and when did this happen? Being the youngest of four, I found myself on the bottom rung many times, but always believed my time to be center would come. 

Now, I’m seeing that I belong at the other end! The lively, intense, with it conversations are flying around me and I feel intimidated to jump in. Half of the time I don’t know anything about the music, the shows, the one-liners that are being tossed back and forth at rampant speed by the young adults at the table. Every once in a while, a bone will be tossed my way and I bite, and there is a few seconds of satisfying engagement, and then the wave passes and the next topic takes flight.

I perceive myself to be pretty with it. I try and stay current with news, technology, pop culture and so on, but it’s impossible to keep up. I’m not of the techno generation. I am a baby boomer kid and we were raised in a different world. In my minds eye, I can picture myself looking down the table to the quiet end where we sat my grandmothers at holiday dinners. We’d lovingly smile at them, ask them benign questions, and compliment them on their Jell-O molds and celery sticks. I may be over dramatizing this scene, but I clearly recall that their presence brought stability, peace and love, but generally we, the younger generation, did not create space to hear much from that end. I feel this now at many gatherings. I'm still sorting through those thoughts and feelings. It's not a bad thing, or intentional on anyone's part, but it's a new chapter that I'm aware of (perhaps another post:).

I have so many questions now for my grandmothers, my own mom, my aunts and other women who have left this earth quietly, even silently. My grandmas lived through WW1, WW2, the great depression, Korea, Vietnam, the Kennedy era, the cold war, the industrial revolution etc. As little girls they rode horseback, and by the time they left here we had landed on the moon and they themselves had flown across the globe.

They had husbands, fathers, brothers and sons that went to war. These ladies experienced excruciating losses and disappointments, and they celebrated amazing accomplishments (mostly of others). Some of their loved ones were imprisoned; while others were incredibly successful in the world’s eyes. I was too self-focused to glean from their wisdom and their experience to the extent I wish I had. Most of these ladies lived in the shadow of their husbands. They worked hard and never made a dime.

These beautiful women grew up in a culture where, on the whole, their voices didn’t matter and their opinions didn’t count. They were silenced again and again. However; they whispered into our ears and our hearts in deep, altering ways. I can still hear phrases, see expressions on their faces, and remember their quiet strength that truly shaped our homes and gave us the courage to step out of the lines.

When you think of those who are no longer sitting at your holiday tables, what comes to mind?