Blast from the Past

What a slice of history we were experiencing! In the middle of a family huddle of conversation and laughter over the dining table at our son, Jamie's, house, I was suddenly aware of my own voice coming from a tape recorder. "When did you record that?" I asked in surprise. Then I realized I was hearing a tape made some 20 years ago by our then highschool son when we were on a trip to "Grandma's".

"Grandma", my mother, was being interviewed for posterity by Jamie, her sixteen-year-old grandson. And here was posterity giving rapt attention to her colorful tales told in her dear, familiar voice, unheard for the past 15 years. "These are folk tales!" her great-grandson, Grant, exclaimed in delight. Grant doesn't remember much about my mother, having seen her only a few times in his young life; she passed away when he was only seven.

A natural story-teller, Mama had us holding our sides in laughter as she recounted outlandish adventures she recalled from the "hard times" of the 1940s. I was familiar with these stories, and I could hear myself faintly in the background jogging her 82-year-old memory, or reminding her to speak into the mic. (When her voice grew faint, it was because she had put the microphone to her ear like a telephone.) Then, enjoying the blunder as much as anyone, she laughed at herself, her voice pealing out in delight to us across the airwaves and across the years.

Mama's stories were kind of like the Bible, telling the unvarnished truth in un-sugar-coated realism of their desperate hard times that called for desperate measures. Yet when told from her distant vantage point, any embarrassment or disgrace dissolved in the hilarity and novelty of the situations, especially to the ears of her hearers.

This bridge to the past, a lesson in perseverance to her descendants, only makes us appreciate more the goodness of God, who brought our family through to stability and a measure of prosperity when faith in Him became the cornerstone of our lives. Thank you, Mama, for helping us to remember.