The older I get, the more people I lose.

The souls who are now on “the other side” are adding up, while the ones who remain are starting to dwindle.  As a genealogical researcher, I have always felt connected to the past.  When I discover the name of an ancestor, it breaths life into them once more.  The meager details I can garnish from the documents left behind, along with the historical details I uncover on the times and places within which they lived, fill in a bit more.

These people lived, cried, laughed, and died and then they were forgotten.  But through my research, they live again.  No future generation will know my grandparents, but I did.  No future generation will know my parents, aunts and uncles, but I did.  They were real.  They are not just names to me and I don’t want them to be just names to you.

Someday, my name will be added to that list.  If not for my writing, I would be forgotten too.  So let it be said, I lived, I cried, and I laughed.

(Theresa Dodaro is the author of The Tin Box Trilogy @ http://www.theresadodaro.com)