Birthdays Come and Birthdays Go...

"Life is the sum of all your choices."  -Albert Camus

Last night Mother told me that October 23 was her father's birthday.  I had never heard that little factoid before, probably because he was a bit of a rascal in his day so he was seldom talked about.

Now, I wish I would have known him some.  I do remember sitting in the front row of the Rosebud church for his funeral and when I was back some time ago to that same church I took a photo of his grave.

I stood by the side of the road where his farm once was, now covered in a beautiful crop.  It came to me that the beauty of the land alone should have been something to the man.

But there has to be more than that for a child to know about their grandparent.  So, I think we must do some sleuthing, more properly known as research on the man and find out who he was, what made him what he was, where he went and how he lived.

"Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle curved tunnels of leaf miners on the surface of a leaf.  We must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what's going on here.  Then we can at least wail the right question into the swaddling band of darkness, or, if it comes to that, choir the proper praise."   
-Annie Dillard