insight

Family love, loss

The telephone belonged to the Sheriff of Bent County.

He was my great-grandfather, and the phone was passed down to my mom, and now the phone is mine. My father is much older than I am, and while I expected a decline in his health brought on by his decades of smoking, I never expected to lose my mother at the age of 66.

We know she will not reach another birthday-that's all the way to next July-so now my sister and I are relegated to sorting through 35 years of stagnant memories in our parents' house, preparing it for sale. It is so morbid and difficult, splitting up the 'stuff' that made up their lives. Diminishing a family to mere boxes full of her spoils and mine.

The phone still has its original insides. I think it is one of the most amazing things ever. I used to play with it when I was little. I asked my mom if it used to hang on the wall of the jailhouse, since my great-grandparents, known as Ma and Pa Dunavin, lived on the second floor.

They had arrived in Las Animas in a covered wagon. My mom said she didn't remember whether the phone was in the jailhouse, and since my Grandmother passed away eight years ago-also sooner than anyone expected-I have nobody else to ask.

My family history is fading away with my family. What will it dwindle to in another two generations?

It's hard enough watching someone you love suffer and die, even more difficult thinking about the history they protected also passing on and dying with them. I can see there is so much she wants us to know, but now, there is no time to learn it.