Creating a Family Legacy for "My Three Sons"

By:Deborah Cleckley

About two months before my 16th birthday something happened which changed the path of my life forever. My parents were both killed in a car accident. I really could not understand why God would take them away and not me. My Dad was a preacher/school teacher and my Mom, who had waited until us kids were in school to back to college, had finished her degree and begun a teaching job herself. It hurt so bad that I tried to just forget everything.

I am now 47 years old and have three boys. Last May I attended a Creative Memories class without having any idea what I was in for - I was hooked immediately. Scrapbooking became my way to relax from a stressful day at work. My boys liked reading what I journal under and around the pictures. They began asking me more and more about their grandparents.

I had very few pictures of my parents and many of my memories were buried deep inside me. But I began a quest to scrapbook my past and it has been the most wonderful journey. Relatives have shared pictures and memories. One cousin sent me a newspaper article about my Dad dated a month before I was born. It talked about him leading a revival at a church and 19 people acceptting Jesus. I wrote to the newspaper in the small town where we lived until they died and the person who received my letter turned out to be one of my older brother's school friends. He wrote back that my family was very important to him and his family. Gradually, I'm remembering more and more and I'm journaling my memories so that I can never forget them again.

As I collect pictures and other stuff for my hertiage scrapbook I create memories which I'm sharing with my three sons. Through scrapbooking they (and I) have gained a much deeper sense of who and what we are. I will always be grateful to the friend who "drug" me to that first Creative Memories Class. A scrapbooker for life.



Tomorrow at dMarie Daily: A Dad's Life, by maureen d.