I am alone with this memory.  Maybe that is the hardest thing about losing someone.  I think of all those memories that make up my life, good and bad, that only I now have.  It could be that which makes us orphans when we lose our parents, no matter what age.  Who else is there that remembers this childhood memory or that one?  It's a very lonely feeling to have so much of our past tumbling around inside us, unsharable.  Saying "Do you remember...?" to fewer and fewer people is one of the saddest things about aging.  Ugh.  Too seriuos.

Another ponderable (not actually a word) item is this.  You know how there is often disconnect with older immigrants in the US and their American raised children and grandkids.  The younger people are too Americanized and lose many of their traditions and customs and simply their parent's views of the world.  Well I see that here with many of our International students and their parents.  Grace is 99.99% American, born and raised and in comportment and attitude.  But I have American friends here whose children they can't fully relate to.  Their kids were raised here and are in most respects, Italians.  I was talking today to a girlfriend with a couple of teens who have grown up here.  She plans to return to the States and is worried about losing touch with her kids as they will surely want to live here.  Another gal is from Syria though they have lived abroad for 20 years.  She and her husband are Muslims but the children are very western.  I have her two little girls in one of my classes and I have to say I cannot imagine them in headscarves!  There are also the "homeless" families who have spent so many years traveling that they have lost a base.  Our Dutch friends have spent their entire married life moving from place to place with his UN assignments.  Their children have never lived in Holland and have no interest in doing so.  If you ask them where they'd like to live they say the US as that's where they lived the longest, 3 years.  When our friends retire and move back, where will their kids be?  Even after her 4 years here I am quite sure that Grace is so firmly rooted in Maine that she'll want to be nearby.  I hope so!

xxoo me