Another Passing

As I drove up the Reach yesterday on my way to another funeral I spoke the names of the women who have gone on and left us. Charlotte,Audrey,Irene,Isabel,Audrey,Blanche,Edith,Shirley, Irene, Muriel , Alice ,Dora, Faith, Helen,Alice, Edie, Ida , Iva, Clara, Hazel, Betty, Ethel,Lynda, Zetta, Newcomb, Vida,Grace,Ruth, Pauline, Marjorie, Vera, Jean, Bessie,Mabel,Willa, Helen, Mary, Winnie. I am sure I may have missed somebody but in saying the names I remembered the women of my childhood, my young womanhood , my past. After the service a friend said " We are loosing our mothers" Another person remarked that "we are the old people". I feel an awakening to the fact that roles are reversing. It is funny that the list of names holds so many of the character names I have chosen for my writing. They are the women who have shaped me, the women I aspire to be . In listening to a daughter's beautiful eulogy I reflect on the words that could be said of me when it is my day to be remembered. So much of the fabric of these women's lives is similar to my own. Times change and stay the same. In this amazing place we live out the lives we are given and make the mark we are meant to make. We build our marriages,raise our children , make our homes,welcome our grandchildren,do our work and effect others around us. We are given the length of days afforded us and it is entirely up to us to live them as best we can.I know this is the way of things and has been as long as time but somehow it is just dawning on me. I am but a small kog in the wheel, one light on the vast string , one woman in a long line. My light will fade and be extinguished and a flicker of it will remain. I will have made a difference, left a legacy and my time here will have mattered just as every woman who went before me and every one who follows.So on this beautiful January morning, a fresh snow covering the landscape, I embrace the day. I will step up to this stage I'm in and live it.