Family, Gatherings, Nature, Uncategorized

Lest we ForgeT

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My cousin who recently died loved butterflies. As her casket was lowered into the ground, those in attendance set free butterflies they had been given, housed in paper packages. Her sister ordered them half frozen, packaged them, thawed them, and then distributed them to be released at the appointed time. They were Painted Lady butterflies. I will never see a butterfly and not think about my cousin.

As we drove home on Friday, we passed these long rows of trees, each about half a mile long and about 100 feet apart, planted many years ago about 15 miles from our town. They were planted to combat erosion in the 1930’s. When my dad lived with us just before he died, he said those trees always reminded him of Franklin Roosevelt. Now, when I see them, I think of my dad and Franklin Roosevelt. How interesting that one thing can remind us of other, non-related things.

What reminds you of people or things? What do you want people to see that reminds them of you?

36 thoughts on “Lest we ForgeT”

      1. Damn, you had to go ruin it! I was having fun envisioning the kits. A belated happy birthday. If I remember correctly you turned 79 on the 12th.

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  2. The smell of Green Chartreuse brings me back to a summer evening with friends in a screened porch in Moorhead more than 35 years ago. It was a lovely evening.

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  3. Seeing little kids when out and about reminds me of my mom – she would always try to engage them, or just watch and giggle. Popcorn reminds me of my dad, plus a myriad of things that would make him laugh, i.e. someone (PJ?) mentioned here recently the phrase “Too soon old, too late schmart…”

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  5. I love the idea of releasing butterflies at a funeral or other special celebration, Renee. What a lovely gesture. It still pains me all of these years later that the lasting image I have of our friend Mike’s memorial service was the release of balloons. I just couldn’t bring myself to release mine, with a message to Mike attached to its string, knowing how environmentally harmful that symbolic gesture was.

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    1. Nothing to do with the original question, but it pains me every day, to see how far we have to go to make people realise it’s up to every one of us to think about the damage we are doing. If I can’t afford, or don’t have time, to be bothered about it, then why should my neighbour? He is no better off, or less busy, than me.

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  6. Morning –
    Cardinals remind us of Kelly’s Aunt and Uncle.
    When I patch a tire I think of my Dad. I watched him do that so many times.
    Bagpipes make me think of my friend Jess.

    I love the butterfly release; that’s nice.

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  8. Memory is a strange thing, you just never know what it’s going to grab on to and store forever in your cranium. I know for certain that mine is crammed full of images of people in all kinds of situations. Not unlike one of those photo montages where images dissolve, one into another, sometimes too fast for the image to really manifest in thought. A slide show, if you will, of all the random moments that have somehow taken up permanent residence in my brain.

    Can’t say that I have spent much time thinking about how I want to be remembered, but no doubt it’ll be a mixed bag depending on who is doing the remembering.

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  9. My dad is skippy super chunk peanut butter, chives regal scotch and crown royal whiskey, my mom is art therapy and art class, cousin dan is landscape painting, other dan is cross country skiing in the mountains, brother is finger picking guitar and bluegrass banjo and dobro
    I hope to leave a legacy worth remembering before I’m through, I think if Nobel who read his obituary and fixed it after a mistaken report of his death
    I’m working on it

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    1. That’s funny tim because anytime I open a new jar of peanut butter it makes me think of my father. My father was the ultimate devils advocate. If you opened a new jar peanut butter and dug your knife into the middle he would react with horror. But then the next time you opened a new jar and you went on the side he would react again. So no matter what you did when you had a new jar peanut butter he would gasp and howl. I think of him every time I open a new jar.

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      1. Peanut butter reminds me of my first year of grad school, a time when I had not one friend in Minnesota. I also didn’t have a job, so I had no money. (I remember carrying a checkbook balance of less than $5 in the winter.) A roommate got free bread from a bakery where he worked. I ate peanut butter sandwiches twice a day.

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        1. Peanut butter reminds me of my childhood, when I put salt on it and put bucketloads of it on bread.
          In the eighties, my brother and I worked with Jean Marie from DC, in Wales for a few months. She got me eating sandwiches with peanut butter on one slice, jam on the other. Any mention of peanut butter brings back Jean and her tall stories.

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        1. Or we could say that my father was just the kind of person who thought throwing gas on a fire was prime time entertainment.

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      3. Sherrilee, you need to skim a thin, even layer from right across the surface of the peanut butter. That way, you then scrape off any that’s on the lid. Now you can remove and replace the lid, with no fear of further peanut butter getting on the lid, which may end up with waste, for instance if the lid was dropped on the floor. Danger is always present, and we don’t want waste. But didn’t your dad ever explain all this?

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        1. I think it would have been interesting to put you and my father in the same room with new jars of peanut butter.

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  12. I just saw the second question. (Sigh.)
    I would like to be remembered when people hear a particularly beautiful or unusual bird song, or a favorite song that we’ve sung together somewhere, or heard on TLGMS.

    OT: Husband had a minor stroke earlier today, and will be at hospital at least one night. I’ll get on when I can the next few days. He’s doing much better this evening, talking normally, memory relatively intact. Send good energy, please.

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    3. Oh no, sorry to hear that, BiR. Strokes are scary. Glad he’s recovering and the damage minor. Take good care of yourself. Thinking of you both.

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    6. Frightening for you, I’m sure. My father in law had just one stroke, at least twelve years ago. Has not worked hard to avoid another, but it remains the only one. 79 now.

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  14. Ashes (camp fires) remind me of my sister because I have her ashes at home. I will also be cremated and then our ashes will be mixed together and with a small ceremony we (our ashes) will be throw into the wind from a mountain top to continue to be useful by fertilizing the forest!

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