A Promise 2 Keep...

Its funny how you can put so much thought into a topic for this space, feeling fairly uncertain your choice is appropriate and then something so special just falls in your lap. That is just what happened to me.

It has been way more than a "month of Sundays" since I heard from my dear sweet niece, Jennifer, in KY when suddenly out of the blue she calls. It is no small feat staying connected to this young woman since she has no phone and moves around alot but somehow I can always count on her finding me. You see, I am the closest living relative to her late father, my brother, who passed away tragically when she was under 2. She is now in her early 30s with 3 children of her own, a single mom who seems to have more than her share of life's turmoil.

Jennifer's dad, Buddy, and I at ages 1 and 2

Jennifer doesn't have a lot of money being a single mom and for some reason never has a phone of her own. She's usually at the mercy of friends who will share their's and so invariably every 2-3 years I will hear from her and this weekend was the chosen time for us to reconnect. I'm very thankful for the kind friend who cared enough to share a phone! I haven't seen my niece in about 17 years.

She said she was looking through her photos and was so sad because she has none of her father or our family. She told me she looks at the faces of her two sons and wonders if they looks like her father because she has always been told she looked so much like him and wondered if they do too. My heart aches for her and for the sadness she has lived with but this hobby we all share offered such a wonderful opportunity that we both were overjoyed!

Since she is so poor, and her very old religion shuns a lot of modern trappings, I knew emailing digital photos was pretty much out. So...what better way to share my huge box of inherited family photos than to scrap her a family tree?! I have put out requests to the rest of the family for current family photos so our KY family can "meet" the DE kin...hopefully, she'll find a way to share photos of her children someday too. It has been so many years since she has seen our family I am hopeful that we'll find a way to see each other soon and definitely through scrapping we'll be able to share a little of our past...and the future!

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving and don't forget to scrap those special memories! You never know when a typical photo will become hugely important in your life.

Lotsaluv,

Ronda