by RoseMary McDaniel
As I write, I keep my eyes focused on my computer screen. Glancing to the right, ever
so slightly, and I am conscious of her presence. Under her guidance, I feel comforted, yet
each time I let her take control, it grows harder to resist. It is a power struggle
between us, but I instinctively know that her power is greater than my own. She is content
to be a silent observer, knowing that I will soon ease my guard and let her in, again. She
waits, having learned the patience of more than a century of time.
I struggle to keep my own identify intact. Born Becky Ann, in
Bristol, Indiana more than thirty years ago, I was whisked away to California as an infant
by a flower-child mother, wilting in the traditional life of a small, mid-western town.
Orphaned early, I had no contact with my past, until I received an intriguing family tree
e-mailed to me by a distant cousin. It showed 5 generations of our family nestled together
in the quiet countryside cemetery called Bonneyville, in that small Indiana community. At
32, single and bored with my job as a lawyer in San Francisco, I felt an urge to visit the
ghosts of my past. With only my dog, Max to make arrangements for, it
was easy to plan an impromptu trip into history.
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