Roots, and their value

Lovely daughter Diana is back from Australia with heaps of family news, so much it will take me many months to absorb it all.

Most-impact items:

1. A photo of my grandmother, now long dead, taken when she was about 40. I'd seen a photo taken when she was in her 20's, playing games on the grass wearing an ankle length skirt, but her face was indistinct. So, I'm floored by her beauty. When I knew her, beginning at about age 6, she was cranky and sick from severe diabetes for which there must have been none of today's treatments. I do remember with gratitude however her many, many kindnesses to me.

2. A photo of a movie theater in Sydney Australia suburb Collaroy, designed by my father when I was five years old.  Not only is it still screening movies but has been officially dedicated as a monument and cannot be demolished. The poor old guy, my father, he was a drunk, and it's a shame he didn't live to enjoy the honor. I suppose my brothers, and their children, get to enjoy some of the reflected appreciation.  My father ignominiously abandoned us when our mother died. My younger brothers, then 8 and 5, went to an orphanage, and I went back to California. The wounds are still healing. Diana had guts and determination and strength to go 'home' and in a metaphoric sense shore up some of the damage. Women handle such healing chores, I believe, better than do men. In any case, it took a woman to handle this job. Brava Diana!!

3. Diana got to read some of the letters  I wrote from America to my brothers in Australia, and to see photos of Diana as a child kept by my brother's widow Beryl who made Diana's visit not only possible, but plausible. So I owe a heap of thanks to Beryl.

4. Diana has posted 167 Australia photos on a website that I have access to. The brave new world department, ha ha; Does away with having to secure and mail copies. There must now be over 300 Australia photos I have access to. 

At the risk of my phrasing it incorrectly, I'll nevertheless venture a guess that Diana will probably be able to more easily get on with her life now that she has created a way for her to view her greater family.

Thanks for listening.

Barry

http://journals.aol.com/bbartle3/Vengeance/