Читать книгу Legacy - Linda Spence - Страница 7

Preface

A few summers ago, my two sisters and I spent three weeks driving across the country, taking routes similar to ones we had taken as a family forty years ago. We visited our father’s hometown, a place we hadn’t seen for all those years. Sitting on a step of the front porch of a slightly shabby house divided into apartments, we took a picture mimicking the one our father had taken of us, when it was our grandparents’ wide verandah with the rocking chairs and cool green ferns. Basking there in the warm southern sun, I felt another kind of warmth as we stared out at the front lawn and brought back memories of the dusk games of Kick the Can that our father organized, the fireflies just out of reach, and the comfort of familiar grown-up voices drifting up the stairs as we lay in our beds hoping for a cool breeze. On that trip we compared notes on how we remembered what we had done together as a family, and we offered each other what we knew of our parents’ early years. Other than where they had lived and gone to school, we knew very little. This didn’t surprise me as I have clear memories of myself as a child hanging around the kitchen or leaning over the front seat of the car, badgering them with questions about their lives. Somehow the subject always was dropped as the frosting bowl needed to be scraped or another road-song was begun.

By the time my sisters and I made that nostalgic summer trip, our parents were no longer living, and Legacy was close to completion. I had been moved to begin work on Legacy by my mother and my sister. I was encouraged to stay with the project by people’s eager responses—their dreamy look and earnest, “Ohhh, I wish I had a copy of that for my . . .” then they’d name a relative or someone close. Often I’d hear, “I might start one myself.”

My daughter keeps saying, “I hope you’re writing your Legacy.” I am. So I have an idea of what lies ahead for you, and I warmly welcome you and encourage you to begin.