Flashback to 20 years ago: I had a cousin who’s about 15 years older than I am. Out of the blue, she began calling. I had become the keeper of the family Bible, and she needed information from the family records section. Several phone calls ensued. I was slightly tickled at how ardent she was about pursuing family history. Years later, I understood. I was doing the same thing, chasing down certain death notices, military listings, and cryptic notices left by others on Family Search and Ancestry.com. (And when did I join those web sites?)
You reach a certain age, and certain things become more important than they once were. This is not unusual; in fact, it’s a common development once you reach you 60s. Art becomes more important. So does great literature (the stuff that’s lasted). And genealogy, as if we need to know where we came from before we become just another record in the family Bible.
Ask Dana Gioia (1950-). Better still, read his new poetry collection, Take Me to the Lighthouse: Poems. It’s not a nostalgic collection; Gioia is too clear-eyed a poet to start looking backward and remembering only the good parts. But it is a collection about family, about memory, about growing up, and about what once was but is no longer.
To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.
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