remembering two of "the greatest generation"

 

of Margie and Bus

who am I?

who are you?

the self is a wild combination

of constancy and spontaneity,

a basic amalgam, present from birth,

that constantly tinkers with subtleties of decision and response,

with each day and with each other

we are pulled out into refinement of the compound

that is who we are,

I have a project to do what I can

to remember and express both my parents,

my mother's siblings, and their worlds,

who really was my aunt and the person she chose and married?

I record a video of my first cousins and their kids

struggling to answer the questions of who these people were,

they tell stories of actions and of words,

love is the lens through which they acted

and through which we see them,

each though is clouded to us

by the limits of what we saw, what we heard, what we felt,

by our own imperfections that challenge our empathic leap,

so while we see them with love and appreciation,

we cannot see them as fully as to who they were as we'd like,

they must have adjusted their selves to fit

within the connections of who we were, with them,

I hear stories that ring true

to the persons I experienced and loved,

I also hear perspectives

that challenge how it all seems to me,

I can see and glory in the children and grandchildren before me

who live their lives as fully as they can

and who know themselves in significant ways

because Margie and Bus knew themselves as well as they did,

they found available paths to let that of God within them

be true to who they realized they were,

they then gave gifts by nurturing the young before them,

and letting them loose to fly as well as each can,

one way to know another

is to see the effects of one's life,

Margie and Bus, you lived your lives well,

your extended family shouts that truth!

by Henry H. Walker

November 10, ‘25