Thursday, November 23, 2006

My father, the young man on the left


Arval Daniel Sumsion served a mission in Omaha for the Mormon church. He met my mother there.

Email to my sister today:

Lots of rain this morning. I am hoping we can take a walk along the river if the weather isn't too fierce. Our Thanksgiving buffet is a 2 pm. We will have a quiet day. I hope I can catch up on a lot of things that I've just let go. I admire your ability to keep your house so nice. It must seem very quiet now without the crowd. The funeral program was lovely. It sounds like a good send off.

My mantra now is "Every day in every way I'm getting better and better."

Linn is having headaches. He has decided he doesn't need cataract surgery yet but will get a eye test and new glasses.

We watched that Front-line program on PBS on Tuesday about the 'Living Old.' What a bummer! Reality sometimes is. It was about keeping old folks alive with all the new technology and in the end it doesn't turn out very well.

I'm stuck with my blog today. I can't find the photo that I was going to have next. Oh well, I don't have to have any consistency. It is for whatever I want to post not necessarily something serious. What did you mean about finding things you'd repressed? I'd look at that as something to become aware of-----like it tells us about ourselves----maybe not easy to accept but a way to deepen understanding. We are such a mix of emotions and feelings and growing up we go through lots of conflictual experiences. As much as I had so much anger about my father I still remember things I loved about him. I remember our parents fought openly and often without any regard for who was around---like their children. I was embarrassed about it. And yet it gave us a good look at reality and human experience, difficult as it was. At some point in my life I decided I had to be a good parent to myself and with my children I wanted to be the good parent to them that I had a partial model for and the rest I needed to invent.

And we need to know ourselves and forgive ourselves.

1 comment:

The Mayfield Farm said...

Morman corrected sp is Mormon.
Well, many things in my childhood were forgotten until I remembered them - then, I learned how to forgive. Yes, he was a good Dad - when he was not at home. He did provide for us.
Actually, Dad's Mission was in the Central States mission which included Omaha.