The Family Circle

My aunt phoned last night, and we got talking about her father. I have written about him before, the early Jehovah Witness. She described how special the time with him was when they would kneel at her bedside to say her prayers. He would say, “Who do you want to bless tonight?” She would name the usual people and sometimes add someone new. This is a lovely picture, isn’t it? I am assuming he did this with my mother as well. I wonder why she didn’t do it with me. The closest my mother and I came to naming people was to induce me to eat she would say, “This spoonful is going down to Grammie. This spoonful is going down to Aunt Tempie.” The idea that there was an intimate circle of relatives and friends who should be blessed or fed was early ingrained in my aunt’s mind, my mother’s, mine. My mother expanded that circle to include many of the walking wounded of the world.