Memories Bring Smiles
I hope you’ll join me today for a little trip down memory lane …
My mom died almost five years ago. Since her passing, a cardboard box filled with her memorabilia has been stored under our guest room bed. We’re getting ready to paint and redecorate the room, and in this process, I am committed to purging and organizing.
As I perused the contents of the box, what a jog down memory lane I have been taking! Among the various things Mom kept was a copy of the eulogy I wrote for my aunt’s memorial service in 1996. I was blessed with several wonderful aunts but was closest to this one. I was born during a time when she needed the joy of hope only a baby can bring, and we had a special and lasting bond of affection.
My aunt nurtured my love for words and stories. Here is one of my thoughts from her eulogy:
“My Aunt was a woman who loved words. If you knew her even casually, you knew how she liked to talk! We can thank her for leaving a legacy of family stories. She enjoyed telling jokes and never forgot the punch line! She had a love and remarkable memory for poetry. Her favorite poet was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I can still remember my aunt as she started to quote ‘Hiawatha’s Departure.’ I almost felt as if I was sitting ‘By the shore of Gitche Gumee, By the shining Big-sea-Water,’ enthralled while she flawlessly recited the lengthy poem from memory.” She was also well known for her collection of “one-liners.”
Attached to the typed copy of the obituary I had given my mom, were four 5x7 sheets of paper on which my aunt’s distinctive penmanship revealed some of her famous “one-liners.” One day, these papers will end up in the recycling bin, but I decided to memorialize some of the pithy statements for you in today’s Listening on the Journey … blog:
My memory is excellent, but there are three things I can’t remember. I can’t remember faces. I can’t remember names, and, oh shoot, I’ve forgotten that third thing!
An old timer is someone who learned to ride a bicycle before it became a fitness machine.
The next time you’re feeling down, think of all the terrible things that didn’t happen to you.
It’s been said, “A fool and his money are soon parted.” What I’d like to know is how they got together in the first place.
Invest your money in taxes. They are bound to go up!
(For those of us trying to manage our retirement income well, I think you’ll chuckle at this one.) The reason you can’t take IT with you is that IT goes long before you do.
The “straight and narrow path” is never a four-lane highway.
Beware of the person who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds themself no wiser than before.
The best fence around wisdom is silence.
One valuable part of knowledge is to be ignorant of such things that are not worthy of knowing.
The people who tell you to never let little things annoy you have never tried sleeping in a room with a mosquito.
A boring person is someone who persists in talking about herself when you want to talk about yourself.
Frogs have it easy. They can eat what is “bugging” them.
If you talk too much, you’ll say too much.
Man cannot live by bread alone. He needs peanut butter.
Admit your errors before someone else exaggerates them.
I think I’ll try the new Chinese diet. Eat all you can, but with only one chopstick.
Today’s mighty oak is just yesterday’s nut that held its ground.
Pray for a good harvest but keep on hoeing.
A sense of humor is like a needle and thread. It will patch up so many things.
Finally, the only saying for which she cites the source: “Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this – that you are dreadfully like other people.”
James Russell Lowell
Thanks for letting me introduce you to a woman who was important in my journey. I hope some of my aunt’s “one-liners” brought a bit of joy to yours!
About this photo: Each spring when our peonies bloom, I think of my aunt. She gave us several peony plants which had once belonged to her father when she moved into a retirement center. Both my grandfather and aunt loved pretty flowers and were outstanding gardeners.