transplant

We had a family tree on our basement wall at the last house.  I love that tree.  So Fermando made us a new one at the house.  That husband of mine did a spectacular job on this house project. And each of the kids got to paint a leaf.  Since they are the leaves on the tree.  Fitting.


I find it funny in an interesting not a ha ha way that we walk by the family tree day after day, up and down, without thinking about it and then suddenly one of us will stop and notice.  "Is that Victor that Victor is named after?" Sammy Boy will say.  "And is that the one Miranda is named after?"  And Teo will just stop and say "Gwama Baugh.  Gwampa Baugh.  Gwama Howell. Gwampa Howell. Pa.  Gwama."  Just letting me know he knows all those people and it's cool that they're there on our wall.  But it makes me so so so so glad that he KNOWS those people. 
 
So now this turned into a bit of a memorial day post because I have been so blessed in my life to know many of the people on our tree that are the next set of limbs up on the branches.  I think about them sometimes, watching me here, rooting for me and having empathy for me.  I would like to be better for them, to be a strong link in the chain they took so much effort to build. 

I love Fernando's grandparents too.  I love Mami Betty whom I know, and Papa Papa who is Victor's namesake for everything I know about him.  I love his maternal grandparents who are gone.  I will never forget visiting their graves in Peru.  Tall, stone walls of names on boxes.


So different from our stones nestled in grass with carvings of temples or children's names on the back.

  Just a grey grid with the name of someone so important to us in the center.  I felt an overwhelming, deep love and my heart reached out with gratitude toward these people even my husband never met in person.  Thank you, I said.  Thank you for sacrificing having your daughter close so that she could be my mother-in-law, so our family could be.
 
The truth I have is so precious it is a wonder I don't cry about it every hour of my life:  I will be able to see these women and men that I love so much, that have shaped me and my situation, again. Forever!  What a tree.