Looking Forward #18

As life goes on for us we seem to reflect more and more on where life has brought us. My dear mother, when I was young always told us, when we were in a hurry to be older "don't be in a hurry to be older because before you know it will happen sooner than you think", she never wanted us to grow up to fast. She always had a hard life and later what did life do for her, it threw her a curve ball and took the only man she loved at an early age, also leaving her three girls to raise alone. She had never worked outside the home, had no skills, so she went to work in the pottery, mom also got a pension once a month from the Steel mill for us girls, I never ask her how much the checks were, my father was only 32 years old when he died.

I look at my two boys and our grandchildren, also our great grand children, I realize what my mom said is here, it has happened right before my eyes, seems like just a blink of an eye. We spent so much money in court that we only took a couple vacations, I am sorry I did not make memories for my grand kids, like I did for my two boys. Even their parents did not take them anywhere, Bonnie came and took them to the carnival a couple times and a few movies, but Ron never did, he only played with them, when he was around. I am not a person that gets depressed, I get mad, there is no time to wallow in depression, things need to be done and I am a doer, actually I can't remember having time to become depressed.

Life moves on, no matter if you don't want it to do so sometimes. We drift in and out of our lives, we do what ever is call upon us to do and move on. We all have sadness, happiness and tragedy come into that life, it depends upon us to handle it in a way that best suits us. I have read on many blog sites about all three of these, it is amazing how we tend to bounce back and continue back into the stream of life. I am sure each of you have handled these situations and came out on top.

In 1980 we went back to Ohio on vacation, to see my last Aunt and Uncle on my dad's side of the family. The aunt I mentioned in my story about bringing my mom out to Michigan is the one we saw first, her name was Ore, the Uncle was Bud. My Aunt Ore's husband was Uncle Os, they were glad to see us and ask us to stay a few days with them. We had the time of our lives, we re met our cousins and had a BBQ, the guy's bought cowboy hat's, I will definitely post on my pictures showing them with the hats on. We saw my Uncle Bud next, he is in my pictures already, they were so glad to see us. My uncle had not seen me since I was about ten years old, we did not do anything with them but visit. This is because my uncle was in poor health and so was his wife. We did stay at a motel with a pool the last three days, they had a pool which pleased the kids.

I also found another cousin, he was working as a fireman and it seemed nice to see his name tag that said Allmon, my maiden name, everybody while I was growing up tried to tell me we spelled it wrong, it should be Allman or Almond. I also found out from him that my grandfather (my dad's father) was still alive but in his late 90's. I did not know this even when growing up that dad's father was alive then, we had never met him. We were young when dad died and mom never mentioned dad's side of the family, not even when dad was alive. This is so sad, all those years, if I would of known when in my 20's I would of tried tracking them down. You know, so many of our older generation have passed on and you never think to ask questions about them and the relatives, all that valuable information gone. My father's mom had remarried and we did know the step grandfather and his kids, his name was Luther Jackson, a very nice old man and so were his kids, Wilbur and Wilson, they always took me to the show, carrying me on their shoulders.

My cousin Jean Butler, in 1973 did a gynecology on our side of the family, we found out we are descendants of Lord Joseph McKinnon from the "Isle of Skye", in Scotland, he was born in 1794. That was such an interesting read, I get it out often and browse through it. There are many relatives I never knew about, she only sent me the sheets that pertained to me, I wish she would of sent more. I thanked her because it was quite a report and had to of taken her a long time to compile. I have tried to get a hold of her over the years but no luck. It is a shamed we don't think to ask the older generation about our relatives and about themselves until it is too late. I got curious after she sent me the report, but all older relatives were gone, so it would be wise to my blogger friends to start asking questions, not only for yourself but for your children.