Life's Pages

Because this blog is dedicated and written in memory of our grandmother, Dorothy Delilah Dale Tode, it is worth mentioning her passing. She died Sunday, March 13, 2011. Today I'm celebrating her life as I unpack boxes of her journals here in my study.

I'm thinking today of a road trip she and I took to visit her homestead near Ryegate, and I'm trying to remember what year it was that we set off on a whim and a full tank of gas to find her roots.

I'll never forget that trip, seeing the little blue and white clapboard church at Lennup, surrounded by a field of yellow mustard-seed weed with a fox and her kits playing at the steps; seeing the home where she grew up that still houses a hard-working ranching family, and the tiny tool shed next to it, that was her father's original homestead shack; meeting her childhood friend, Wallace, and helping him catch his horse, the hot summer wind whipping my long hair into my eyes; and discovering that were it not for the 52 years between us, we might have been the best of friends.

Dorothy with Wallace

I've not felt the strength to open any of her journals. Of course, I'm curious. So curious. But I don't trust my emotions. I'm so near to weeping as it is. Do I dare explore and let my emotions go as I wander through her life's pages?