By Gilbert B. Elwyn
Family issues have kept me away from this pleasant pastime. I have missed writing columns for this magazine and I have missed this one in particular. In this one particular venue I can engage in what I like to call a “stream of unconsciousness”, going wherever the mind will take me and sometimes coming out in the Mighty Mississippi and sometimes dwindling down to a dried out creek bed. Some who have read Ink Blots will assert that the water – or possibly the writer – was polluted.
My mother passed away a few weeks ago. The publisher/editor of this magazine was one of the first to be there for me during her illness and one of the first to respond to her death announcement. I discovered that, Greenville’s driving habits to the contrary, there are a lot of nice people here. I am an old guy, but not ashamed to say that I shed tears and that many of them were brought on by surprising acts of kindnesses too numerous to mention here. Somehow tragedy brings out the best in people. Remember the few days following 9/11? It’s too bad that it often takes a tragedy.
Somewhere I read that mourning was for those left behind and that is a comfort to remember. Mom wasn’t selfish and I don’t want to be. She is at peace and I am the one still here and in turmoil and pain. My mother’s motto (and her mother’s before her) was “Gotta keep a-goin’” and that, too, has helped. So, here I am, moving along with life, but with warm memories and still-remembered motherly wisdom to see me through…
And somehow at age 59 I find myself engaged…to a much younger lady. Guess what next month’s Ink Blots will be about.
“Keep a-goin’!”
