At the end of our visit in November, my mother-in-law gave my husband a bag full of audio tapes she wanted reformatted so she could share them with her siblings while there is time for them to enjoy them and perhaps share their own stories back with her: recordings of their father, who died when my husband was 16. Recordings of her telling stories, so long ago that she sounded like her daughter, Richard’s sister who died of lymphoma 11 years ago. Recordings of her brother singing; of her mother, long gone, who once told my husband that he was eating for two now and who rewarded our coming to visit her, the widow of a dairy farmer living way out in the boonies, by sending us home with two bags from her freezer of the kinds of steaks and roasts that  starving students couldn’t have dreamed of buying and she knew it.

Dear, do YOU know how to do justice to a T-bone? She’s your grandmother! It was an unexpected and very nice problem to have. And the start of my husband’s habit of cooking the meat on Sundays.

Family voices that, after finding it would cost $65 per half hour of tape (!) to pay someone else to transcribe, Richard bought the missing piece of equipment to do it himself.

And so Friday and Saturday all these voices past and of those still present but much changed by now spoke across this room, with more to come.

A family photo book was made for my mother-in-law’s 80th birthday; a copy was given to us today too.

A family photo book was made for my dad’s 85th birthday; a copy was given to us today too.

Photo mugs came out of a box with Parker’s happy face grinning all over them.

The generations continue.