The Journal

Two of my friends have recently posted blog stories about the lives of certain inanimate objects. They are more savvy than I, and know how to post names in their blog that lead to a link that connects you to that person's blog. Like if they typed "Carrie" it would be a different color and if you clicked on it, it would take you to my blog. Since I don't know how to do that, I'll just tell you that it is Becky and Jeana that have inspired me to write the story of..... The Journal. So here it is...

Once upon a time there was a beautiful spiral bound journal. It was full of lined pages just waiting to receive a story. A woman who loved beautiful things and loved to journal fell in love with the beautiful journal and bought it for her very own.



She started writing in it one day, just relating the happenings of the day, even wondering on paper if she would be the faithful writer that she desired to be. She wrote of talking with her daughter on the phone, in far away Texas. The beautiful journal was very happy. It loved keeping memories for this wonderful lady. It loved the warm feeling of her hand on it's pages as she wrote. And it was proud to bear such beautiful handwriting in it's pages, in purple ink that matched the lines on the pages.



Not long after that first entry, the woman joined her family on a trip to Nebraska. Her dad, her husband, her children and grandchildren and her siblings were on this trip. They visited many memorable sights from the father's growing up years, saw the old homestead, where he went to school, where he met his wife (their mother) and many more places that the father remembered; and were meaningful to the family with Native American heritage. The woman recorded many of the stories the father told, writing details of the family's history in the pages of the journal. Oh what joy to contain a lifetime of memories, the history of a family! The journal was very pleased and proud to be a part of this family's heritage keeping.

Well, life happened, and the beautiful journal got set aside after the trip to Nebraska. The woman and her husband eventually moved to be nearer to the rest of their family, and the beautiful journal was placed on a bookshelf in the woman's new bedroom. The daughter became the housekeeper for her parents and on occasion would read some of the woman's journal entries as she dusted.

Time moved on, and the wonderful woman died, making her writings in the journal all the more precious to the daughter. The daughter decided she might like to have the journal, to pick up where the wonderful woman left off, and start recording her own daily happenings in the beautiful journal's pages. The woman's husband requested that the pages with the woman's writing be torn out before the daughter took the journal to her house, thinking how wonderful it would be to make a scrap book of the family history writings. The daughter did a naughty thing then. She tore out the Nebraska trip pages as requested by her father, but left in the first page.... the part about the wonderful woman's conversation with her back when she had lived in Texas and was pregnant with baby number three. (Shhh! Please don't tell my dad! :) )

The journal was sad to lose the story of the family's history, but understood that it's pages would not be forgotten, but instead copied several times and put into a place of honor to be passed on to the woman's children and grandchildren someday. And secretly, it was pleased to keep at least one little remnant of the wonderful woman's writing.

And now the beautiful journal sits beside the bed of the daughter, ready and waiting to feel the warmth of her hand as she writes in its pages of the happenings of her life and the life of her family. Ready to bear the handwriting that is not quite so elegant as the mother's but bear's a resemblance even so.