17 September 2015

In a Small Box, Amongst Boxes

I made a sad discovery while going through this last set of boxes.  At the bottom of a smaller box was this card:


Kevin's mom delivered a child before his brother.  (Kevin is the youngest, although most people guess he's the oldest.)  This baby, a boy, was a Thalidomide baby, so he didn't fully develop.  I'm unclear if he died in utero or shortly after birth.   Kevin's mom said that she saw him, like a glimpse, even though they wouldn't let her have him.

We have never asked what happened to the baby. Only once have I heard her talk about it.  Now, with her health, I'm not sure we would get a clear answer. It was 1959, a small town, and they were poor so it's difficult to guess. There isn't a birth or death record on public record, which is puzzling. I've done an extensive search.  So, I was surprised to see the burial card.  It seems the only proof that this baby existed.

Being the research nerd that I am, I phoned the cemetery.  A wonderful woman named Allie answered my questions, as if the birth had just happened and not almost sixty years ago.  The impact of the information caught me off guard so much.  I just can't even.

The baby was born and died on January 14, 1959.  There isn't a gender indicated, which matches the Thalidomide baby description.  In case you don't know, they were called "Flipper babies" because their extremities didn't develop.  I'm guessing that they couldn't tell and Kevin's mom just chose a gender.  I don't know if she ever named the baby, I'm guessing not.

My plan is to drive out one day soon to the cemetery, where most of Kevin's family has been buried, to see if I can find him.  I suspect that there is no marker though.  Allie said that she could provide a map to show me exactly where he is buried.  I can see if there is a marker or if we need to get one.

I can't imagine that Kevin's mom has been out there to visit.  She was eighteen when this happened, her husband was on the road during the birth, and she didn't drive. Also, they moved to another county shortly after Kevin's birth, three years later, so it's not like she could just stop by.

I'm going to err on the side of caution and not mention any of this to her.  Her condition changes day-to-day and I just don't think it's a good idea to risk upsetting her.  If the opportunity ever arises, I will gingerly share what I've learned.  I know it's been upsetting for me and it's not even my blood relation.  

14 September 2015

Three Boxes

The other night at dinner I mentioned to my mother-in-law that I finally finished the photo project.  All the photos that were going into albums were in them, they were scanned, and some posted on facebook.

She frowned for a moment and said "Did you see a bunch of truck pictures?"

Oh. No.

"Well, there were some but...do you...do you think there are more?"

"I think so. Maybe."

I told her "You're going to make me cry. I don't cry and you're going to make me cry."

To increase the difficulty level to this project, family was coming in the very next day.  Family who would love to see these photos.  I was feeling confident that I had finished the albums and then there's MORE. And now a deadline.  *FUN*

Kevin and I went over after dinner and looked again.  Three boxes of photos.  THREE BOXES.  Full of loose photos, not even in albums.  Some in envelopes but mostly just loose. Three. Boxes.

In some ways I wasn't daunted because I had developed a system.  I do an initial sort into family groups, mother and father.  Then I do another sort into smaller groups of photos that can go to the cousins or into events  This also allows to sort out copies, bad pictures and things like negatives.  Or, in this case this time, slides. Yep. SLIDES.

In the initial batch of photographs there were negatives like none I had never seen before.  They were almost like tintypes.  I had those developed and discovered there was a picture of my father-in-law's dad when he was in his twenties.  So, probably one hundred years old.

These are the kinds of treasures I keep finding.

So, I had a system and a baseline to start, again. One of the albums is a really nice, archival type album.  Kevin's mom had begun to fill it but not in an organized way.  In fact, many of the albums were haphazard like that; halfway organized and then just random photos.

I built upon her work, putting her family's photos in the front and in chronological order.  Then I flipped forward to about halfway through and put Kevin's dad's family photos in chronological order as well.

This was fantastic.  Right up until the additional three boxes.

Okay, challenge accepted.  I found an empty album and started again.  I focused on Kevin's dad's family because those are the folks who were coming to visit.  Now I have an album nearly full of just those photos.

I spent a few hours printing out copies for the Uncle and the Cousin during their visit. They were pretty happy to have them.  Imagine suddenly having photos of you when you were significantly younger, some of which you didn't even know existed.

The fun part, to me, was posting them on my mother-in-law's facebook page.  I made her two albums, one for each branch of the family.  Then I tagged the cousins.  I think we created our own ancestry site on the facebook. Kevin's uncle is a goldmine of information.  Dude can tell you dates, locations, names like it was yesterday.  He turns 81 soon.

Time warp is a risk while doing this.  I've found myself actually dreaming of times and people that I didn't know or experience. Stories that I heard were becoming real.  I was legitimately sad that I missed things like a cousin's wedding or a birthday party.

I watched Kevin grow up as there were photos of when he was an infant, toddler, school-ager, right up to adulthood. He had no idea that his mom had any of these photos.

There were photos of he and his former wife, which were jarring to see at first then they kind of lost their power to shock.  There was a twinge of sadness...regret, maybe, that I didn't get to experience that part of his life.  He swears I wouldn't have liked him then and maybe not.  Who's to know, really.  I knew him superficially while I was married the first time anyway.

But I feel more connected to the family now too.  I can identify family members when they were young, which house the photo was taken at, and I know the stories behind the photos.

And my photo wall is coming along beautifully!




05 September 2015

Half Days, Full Days

I wasn't sure how I would like working in the afternoons.  It has an element of waiting all morning to go to work, which can be frustrating and distracting. But as time has passed, that sense of anticpation/panic is less.

It's been sixty days now (I know, right!?!) and I've decided that I like it, very much.  Previously, I was home by 3:30 every day.  It gave me the afternoon to relax but only two-ish hours before Kevin came home from work.  So, really, it provided time to do chores, start dinner, and maybe watch some television like the news or whatever.

Now, Kevin leaves at 5:30 in the morning and I'm up.  I did not say awake, but up.  I have coffee and a little treat while Lucy and I watch television.  I watch shows or a movie that Kevin doesn't like.  Puppy always sleeps on me and sometimes she is Ambien for me.

I had a steadfast rule of no computer in the morning because it was a big distraction.  I can break that rule now and I need to.  I've lost the rhythm of writing every day and I need to get back into it. As evidenced by the lack of posts here. That and August.

The idea that a pet can be helpful when you spend a lot of time alone is true. Lucy insists on going outside around 8:30 every morning. This means I have to be showered and ready for the day before then.  I have to be ready because she seems to sense when I'm indisposed, if you will, and tends to wander further than allowed.  The shiny side of this is that it's impossible just to laze around all morning because she has things to do.

Subtopic: The cast nurse who helped me when I broke all the bones gave me life changing (for me) advice. "Don't leave a room until you're 100% done in there".  Because I was off my feet for months, I practiced that advice long enough to become a habit.  Bathroom is clean after I get ready for the day, bedroom is straightened after I get dressed, kitchen is clean after breakfast.

So usually I'm ready for the day and have my chores done by 9:00. That's almost four hours of free time.  What have I done with it, you ask.  Sometimes not one single thing.  I've found that I'm much happier when I'm purposefully doing nothing. (duh)  But not every day, otherwise it becomes depressing.  I figured out that I needed to schedule how I was going to spend free time, which is counter-intuitive, for sure.  I set an intention for each day, a small project or task.

Because of this, my rock garden is beautiful this summer.  My house is organized within an inch of its life.  The photo project is 98% finished.  I've watched up to the last season of Bones.   It's been a really nice summer and I'm feeling quite accomplished.

I'm a little worried that when the weather turns, I will not be as active and bored, even.  I guess we'll see.  However, I am enjoying the thought of not defrosting a vehicle every morning though.  The roads won't be slick.

Here is the one thing I don't like: if I need to stop at the grocery store after work.  It's the busiest time in the store, I just want to get back home (I've become a wee hermit-y) and going before work isn't an option if I'm needing cold stuff, which often I am.  Big picture, this isn't a big problem. It does lead to me just going without whatever we need for as long as I can.

Lastly, I enjoy the fact that if I am annoyed with having to go to work, for whatever reason, is that I just tell myself "It's four hours."  Four hours is nothing, big picture.

So, all this is essentially to say that I very much am glad to be working the schedule I am.  I'm relieved that I held out, as scary as it was, and I highly recommend it.  Also, it's September so back to reality.  See you again soon.