A Roesner Family Photo Album

Charleston, day 17

Being with Marsha is being whole -- she is the other piece of me. Our childhoods ran consecutively. They account for the era of the Hawkins family grandchildren. We know we are of the same rich heritage.

We lost ourselves in catching up on all we'd missed of each other. We visited the neighborhood where I spent my adolescent years, visited Aunt Mary's grave, and went to Mammy's house. (Mammy was the name we called our grandmother, Mary Jane Hawkins.) The keys to the cellar where where they always were -- behind the kitchen door -- and Lauren braved the opening for us.

We explored the house and found all the hidden closets and attic rooms I remembered -- places that were forbidden to the younger grandchildren after I, the first grandchild, discovered them many years ago. We filled the house with sounds of laughter and delight with each new discovery and shared recollection. In our minds, we traveled from there to Pine Grove and back -- from nearly 60 years ago and even times before either of us could remember, back to the present.

In our happiness and in our sorrow, God is good.

� 2000 RSR