In memoriam

I haven’t spoken too kindly about elders in this blog, but I am very aware of the debt I owe to those who came before me; I was very close to my grandparents, and keep photographs of my ancestors by the front door so every time I go out into the world, I know who paved the way for me.  It’s MLK Day, and Obama asked everyone to devote themselves to service in King’s honor.  I had been meaning to visit my grandfather’s cousin, Lil, for months–last summer I got the address of her nursing home and picked up some of her favorite things: peppermints and word search puzzles!  But this morning, when I arrived at the nursing home, the guards at the front desk told me she passed away before the start of the new year.  It’s not a good feeling–grief is always difficult, but mix it with guilt and you really feel low.  To know that I could have seen her all this time, but kept putting it off, and putting it off.  And now she’s gone.  I went through my albums tonight, and for some reason can’t find a single photo of Cousin Lil; she was my grandfather’s cousin, and so I’ve put a photo of him in here instead.  I wrote a short story about the year I lived in the basement of Cousin Lil’s brownstone (’95), and now can’t find that either…I do remember the color photo of JFK she kept in her living room; tucked into the frame was a smaller photo of David Dinkins, the first black mayor of NYC.  Cousin Lil didn’t live long enough to see Obama sworn in, but I hope she understood that it was coming, the impossible dream of so many elders.