TheJach.com

Jach's personal blog

(Largely containing a mind-dump to myselves: past, present, and future)
Current favorite quote: "Supposedly smart people are weirdly ignorant of Bayes' Rule." William B Vogt, 2010

Thanksgiving Approaches

I was listening to a bit of my grandma's funeral service recording. Not yet ready for my mom's, but as next month is the 10 year anniversary, I'll do hers then. My mom only did a short segment for grandma, to read a poem, that apparently she read every Thanksgiving at grandma's? But I don't remember that, or the poem. My memory is so shot on these sorts of things. It's embarrassing.

The poem title is "Family Ties", a quick search found its text here and written by Allie J. Hilder in 1954. Though my mom spoke a few differences: "golden memories" instead of "olden moments", which I think is better due to the "silver" later on. And she used "Lord" instead of "God".

Anyway, here's the complete text, using my mom's pair of differences rather than the link's text. Maybe I'll have to bring the tradition back, and at least read it to myself. Alas, I didn't really take up the caring about family bits of personality which my grandmothers on both sides had so much in abundance.

Family Ties

These are the happy years when we are bound
Close to the hearts of those we love so well;
When yellow lamp-light gathers children round
To hear the stories Grandma loves to tell.

These are the precious days when family ties
Have strung the golden memories on a chain,
As lovely as the drenched red rose that lies
Beneath the slanting sheets of silver rain.

This is the family gathered in the glow
Of peaceful home-fires ever burning bright,
Where laughter falls like gently powdered snow
Upon the landscape of the soul's delight.

Lord, keep the yellow lamp-light in the room,
The tiny nose pressed near the window-pane;
The crickets calling loudly to the moon,
The wind-blown roses growing in the lane.

And keep the family safe, and hold them fast
Within these walls; guard all their hopes and fears,
Make each new moment dearer than the last --
In these, the family years.



Posted on 2024-08-11 by Jach

Tags: personal, poetry

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