The remembrance of the righteous is a blessing…(Proverbs 10:7)

Going back to my dining room…

Kindergarten was not required or even offered universally back when I was five years old.  I was already learning to read because my folks wanted me be as ready for first grade as possible.  So, my mom sat down at that dining room desk and used our black bakelite rotary to find out how to enroll me in the trial program that was being offered for pre-first graders.  After several phone calls, we discovered that the program that was being offered was limited in number and that there was no room for any additional children.  I was crushed.  I know that I must have cried many times as I was growing up, but this time I remember being heartbroken that I couldn’t “go to school.”  Imagine that…wanting to go to school that badly.

The final memory I want to share is special one to me because it involved my dad.  He had always smoked as a teenager and as an adult.  Mom never made a big deal of it, though she never smoked and didn’t like that he did.  This was right around the time that the public was beginning to become aware of just how serious a health problem smoking was.  And there were indications that second-hand smoke could be harmful, too.  When he learned that, he simply stopped smoking–cold turkey.  He couldn’t continue, knowing that his smoking could hurt, not only himself, but his family.  My mom was also glad that she could change the curtains and wash the walls that had acquired a brownish tint over the years. Unfortunately,he stopped too late in life and he would eventually die of lung cancer.

I don’t know that I consider myself all that righteous, though I try to be.  But I know that God has allowed me to have many good memories of my past and of my family–even those that didn’t seem all that pleasant at the time.  And, for that, I will be eternally grateful.