Shared Histories

A life is lived, especially these days for many of us, not just through time, but also through space and place: shared histories of childhood with family and first friends, with mates in clubs or armed service or causes, with peers in school, at work places with colleagues and clients, associates or students, patients or collaborators, in towns and countries scattered far from first home.

Few in my generation live the long life, spent mostly in one neighborhood or village of one larger city, associating with one large circle of acquaintances and friends through school into adulthood, in varied civic and personal and professional associations.

I thought about that kind of long life today, sitting in a pew next to a high school/college friend, in front of high school school mates, behind camp friends as we and others celebrated the death of a friend's father, friend to my own deceased father, and I dizzied when someone said, "She's Betsy's first oldest friend." 

"It isn't entirely true," I said.

But then I remembered the names of two our forebears carved on the same commemorative First Settlers stone in one 17th-century New England town, and marveled at the lineage we share.