When I was a child, my great-grandfather was still alive.
He was a man born in the last days of the 19th century. Already well into his nineties, he was a fascinating man to me. I didn’t even fully appreciate it, at the time. I was too young to ask the questions I now wish I would have asked. Still, I was somewhat mesmerized by his age.
Our elders are the last remaining link with a past we’ll never grasp or be a part of. They’re living memories, echoes of an era that has ended. And there is tremendous value in that. My great-grandfather grew up in a time where no one had a telephone, only the doctor and the mayor had one. Hardly anyone had a car and steam engined pulled trains across the land. Horses and carriages were still common. By the time he died, in the 1990s, rap music blasted on radios, we had been to the moon and back decades ago and two world wars had come and go…
I didn’t have the wherewithall to ask him, what he felt of all that. How it made him feel. I was too young, and I didn’t have the words. But I can encourage anyone who is young and blessed to have elderly relatives, to spend time with them. Ask them about their life and hang to their every word, because those words and stories matter. They’re all that’s left from the past; living history. Cherish them.
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