Thursday, May 22, 2014

Family Time

Today is going to be a very out of the ordinary day.  My husband and I will  be traveling with my aunt and uncle on what my aunt calls "a grateful dead" tour.  My uncle has studied our family's genealogy and he wants to go visit some of the places that our ancestors lived.  Until  yesterday, I hadn't seem my aunt and uncle for 14 years.  Where does the time go?  How could that possibly be?  

Today I will learn about people that I never met and who were long gone before I showed up on this earth.  But they're my relatives, my ancestors.  Some of who I am, what I look like came from them.  It'll be about my history.  I don't expect that anything about today will be life changing, but it'll be interesting.  And better yet, it will be time spent with my family.  I've always thought the world of my Uncle Don and Aunt Sandy.  They are very special people.  I feel honored to to get to spend time with them this week. 

As I've anticipated this visit, I started recalling early memories of time spent with them.  In fact, I still have a toy that Don gave me as a small child.  It is a Remco Science Kit that taught you about the physics of gears, pulleys, ratchets, etc.  I loved that thing!!  I loved the fact that Don spent time teaching me about those things when I was little.   Now, I wonder if somehow he was the one that instilled my interest in engineering.  Did I always have that aptitude and he saw it and fostered it?  Or did he plant the seeds?  Who knows?  I showed Don the Science Kit yesterday.  He had no recollection of it. I have realized from this that sometimes we influence others lives and make an impact without ever knowing it.  That's kind of a sobering thought. 

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