My first and powerful impact of the dwindling list was 1993, some quarter of a century ago.....Wow!, has it been that long? My Mother passed away. She had been in ill health and had numerous problems which plagued her for many years.
We proceeded to the formal ritual of visitation, held in our hometown, followed by the service and the trip to the cemetery where she was interred beside my Father who had passed more than a decade before.
Then to the house for the post-funeral burial ritual of food and drink with family and friends. Some of the friends were those of my parents, from their generation.
I went through the motions and then months later it suddenly hit me, during a time I was reflecting on her loss, that I AM THE OLDEST member of my immediate family.
No longer available to me are any folks who KNOW! Know my family, know its history, its ties, its members.....where we lived.....HOW we lived.....none of that exists.
If my sister, my brother or I don't remember it....it is no longer there. Unless some distant relative knows, or has recorded and MADE PROVISION to pass it on, It is no longer there.
Now, those 25 years later, my Brother, 10 years younger, is gone, and just this past weekend we held the life celebration for his former wife....always a family member....
The dwindling list!
Now....a new tool. For Christmas I received both the DNA test from Ancestry and membership in Ancestry. Suddenly, there I find a treasure trove of family.....History, generations of history. Pictures. Notations about lives, professions, military service, etc.
WOW! I can pass a lot of family along. Not all the details, but more than I ever imagined.
I spent a lot of January just getting into the system......I have located close family missing from my life for 70 YEARS!
I am enjoying this and intend to pass it along to my children/close relatives.
Keep family close because there is a "Dwindling List!"
