I notice that while other people may
forget doing what they’ve done, I remember doing what I haven’t done. I think about writing to someone, and the
intention become memory of having written.
Now Ada was hearing about Mom’s
father and remembering Mom’s father as her own?
Or did the fathers of both my mother and Ada have the same experience,
being a grocer during the Depression, losing their stores, and then finally
gaining employment through the Works Progress Administration?
I don’t know. But hearing Mom and Ada reminisce brought
several things to my mind.
One
was how much my mother admired her father because he was a good man—compassionate
and honest. Some people admire only
those who are successful or flamboyant, but Mom admired people who had “character,”
who lived by their convictions. She felt
that part of her father’s “failure” in business was due to his integrity. He gave credit to people who couldn’t pay,
which helped them but didn’t help him run the store.
I remember when I was a Freshman in
high school and Mom was reading Dostoevsky’s The Idiot. She commented
that when a person was really good—compassionate, forgiving, unselfish—the person
would be seen as an idiot.
She thought her father was such a
person, and she loved to talk about his admirable traits I took one of those books with questions, The Story of a Lifetime,
to Mom every Friday to give her the chance to re-tell the stories she loved
telling, but I may have started that too late.
She could certainly still remember the past, but she felt it was a lot
closer than it was, and she wanted to protect the people she thought were still
living.
More later.
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