Jaki Jean on Sharing One of Jean's Memories with my Willimon Cousins

So, this story is for my cousins Jenny, Suzanne, Vickie & Laura.  Because it is one of Jean’s memory’s about their father, Ed.

My uncle Ed remains my favorite uncle.  I used to listen to the discussions he, the not to the right & my father Jack, so to the right, engaged in.   Perhaps that is part of the reason I do not lean to the right.

Tonight, after I described to Jeab the amazing wedding cake Ed’s daughter Suzanne made for her own daughter’s wedding, Jean asked me about Ed, if he was still alive & she said he must be almost ninety by now.

I tell her that Ed is a bit beyond ninety, that his daughters visit him, & that he is still Ed, but in a different way than she remembers.  I tell her that he still recalls details from World War II & can still talk about rocks & fossils & geology.  I tell her that I think Ed’s essence is still there – but I think that he just can’t quite grasp it.

Then Jean tells me a story.

I took a man to dinner at Ed & Janette’s.  Not your father.  Just a boy I was dating.  Ed gave my date a lecture on how much things cost.  Rent, utilities, food, gas.  It was a long lecture.

Later, we laughed, because we were not seriously dating.  Just friends going to a family dinner.

As I leave the room to record Jean’s memory, I remember something Jean told me, when my Aunt Janette had a stroke.

I don’t know how my world will survive without Janette & Ed.  They have always been there for me, part of me.

And so now, I try to keep that connection, as long as Jean remembers it, by sharing posts from Ed & Janette’s amazing daughters, Jenny, Suzanne, Vickie & Laura.

So Jean doesn’t feel alone.