11 42 pst [ official answer readers' questions
week ]
I've gotten some really lovely e-mails lately, not all
of which I've been able to respond to lately, but one in particular caught
my eye. It begins:
I don't even know where to begin. I have
so many questions that I would like to ask but know not whether I should
because I might be prying and invading. I understand that you choose what
to share with your readers, such as myself, and then leave details out so
I will just vocalize these questions as me just wondering. I wonder how
you must feel leaving your childhood home behind. I wonder whose loss you
were mourning when you dedicated a day in December to someone. I wonder
how you go about finding research for your family tree. I am interested
in such a project but I have not a clue where to begin. You see, I have a
common last name and I think it would be difficult to find anything at all
without crossing family lines that I do not even connect to. All is well
though, I shall keep wondering.
There are so many details I leave out. Some are
decisions, but most just get lost in the shuffle. Once someone wrote that
it was odd that both my parents wrote
to me but their letters arrived separately. It would be odd for them
not to share an envelope if they lived together, but my parents seperated
when I was 8 or so. The context is everything. I know that my meaning
gets lost in the shufle sometimes.
So, to answer the above questions...
I wonder how you must feel leaving your childhood home
behind.
I feel empty. I feel cheated. I feel like I didn't
say a proper good-bye, I have no control over if my stuff gets moved to
the new place or dumped in the trash, or anything else. I really always
thought I would inherit that house and I have entertained the notion of
raising my kids there many times. Mostly, I feel that I'm losing the
neighborood, more than the house. What excuse will I have to ever go back
there and revist the past. I feel my childhood slipping further away.
I wonder whose loss you were mourning when you dedicated a day in
December to someone.
She is/was the pseudo-grandmother I mentioned in November.
I wonder how you go about finding research for your family
tree.
I could yap about this for hours, but I will instead
refer you to the article on genealogical research I wrote for the
sorely neglected Reiny Day Guide To Technology.
And in honor of your questions, and all the details one
might like filled in, I am declaring this official answer readers'
questions week. So send them in:
January 1998
January 1999
January 2000
January 2001
January 2002
< yesterday
tomorrow >
Rachel's Daily Diary
