Sunday 28 July 2019

My first cousin...


I've just lost my first cousin.

There are (were) five of us, and we rarely chatted.

At my age, (72), I love family more than I ever did. I can remember times, regret times, recall times, but that won't bring back Mo.

I wish I'd met her more, laughed with her more, watched and heard her fabulous humour more...

Bye, Little Mo.

6 comments:

goosegirl said...

I'm so sorry to hear about your cousin. When someone loses a family member or a friend it gives food for thought about showing others you care even if you don't have a lot of contact with them. GG x

A K Haart said...

Sorry to hear that. It's very sobering when a family member dies of course, but when folk of our own generation pass on it reflects back all kinds of things about our own lives.

goosegirl said...

AK, that's a very profound comment. To me it's so important that we pass on our own experiences of life, not just as interesting stories but as lessons in how we were brought up when money was short, how we managed to overcome various difficulties and what we made of our lives whether it be good or bad. Crumbs, thank goodness people have filmed and also recorded conversations from WW1 and WW2 survivors and also wrote books about them. I've also seen a couple of progs where schoolchildren visited old people's homes and how rewarding it was.

In my research of the hamlet where I live I've made notes from interviews I had with a couple of people who are sadly no longer with us. I'm desperately trying to get my dear friend and well-respected historian to either write down his memoirs or let me tape some interviews on particular subjects so some of his past will not be forgotten. He is one of the nicest gentlemen I've ever met and never blinked an eyelid when he called round the other day when it was so hot and OH brought him in when I was sat on my chair in just a vest and knickers!
OK, here he is so when you hear it you will get the gist of how difficult it would be to pin him down on a particular subject but OMG, I love him so and we always have a hug when he leaves but that was the only time I didn't!

https://soundcloud.com/morecambebaypartnership/bob-parkinson. https://www.britishpathe.com/video/lighthouse-1

A K Haart said...

Goosey - I'll bookmark that for later and listen properly through my headphones.

My mother once persuaded my aunt to write down a few memories but she neglected to write down some of her own. My father also had a number of wartime stories and I'm sure he had far more to tell but for one reason or another none of it was ever captured properly. Too late now of course.

Scrobs. said...

Thanks both.

It all came over as a generation thing suddenly, hence the anguish, which I suppose happens from now on!

Family stuff is so important, but there again, it'll just be pictures and a few anecdotes, which may just not really figure in future generations. Another cousin has got our ancestors back to the year dot, so we may all be related - hope so anyway! My Uncle Jack did actually pen quite a few pages on the family, and there's an intriguing sequence about a riot in Guildford during the... - damn it, I'll blog it!

goosegirl said...

Scrobs, you're so right about how many of the future generations won't give a stuff about pics etc that they can't relate to and may not even care about. OMG, I have an old sepia photo somewhere of some sort of major family gathering in the early 1900's where the women all wore those big fancy hats and the gentlemen stood along side them and all had such serious faces as per those times. I've just got this vision of them either holding their mobile phones to their ears or busy tapping on their iPads in which case we would have lost the war good and proper. All we can do is to pass on tales that make them laugh or make them think about how the world has changed over our lifetimes. My late dad was captured in Crete in WW2 and I so wished I'd had the interest and foresight to ask him how he came through those times. It's a legacy that we can give to whoever wants to listen, and hopefully there will be some that will be willing to care and learn from it.