Colleen Lill
2004-09-11 04:59:18 UTC
A few weeks ago, I started re-reading the series for the umpteenth time. I
think I've read Outlander, Dragonfly and Voyageur at least 3 or 4 times
each, but Drums and Fiery far fewer reads. I'm now just getting into Drums
again and I came across her prologue and it really touched me.
I've been doing genealogy for 5 years now. There are now 2 obsessions in my
life - the wee buiks and genealogy! I read this bit in the prologue and it
struck me how related it is to genealogy, possibly with Herself not really
realizing it:
"I've never been afraid of ghosts. I live with them daily, after all. When
I look in a mirror, my mother's eyes look back at me; my mouth curls with
the smile that lured my great-grandfather to the fate that was me.
No, how should I fear the touch of those vanished hands, laid on me in love
unknowing? How could I be afraid of those that molded my flesh, leaving
their remnants to live long past the grave?"
And the very last line of her prologue:
"But a breeze passing in a still room stirs my hair now and then in soft
affection. I think it is my mother."
I think I read this last line a year or so after my mother died. And it
brought me to tears. There were many many times after she died that I knew
she was with me.
I wonder if Herself knows just how much simple words can move anyone so
much........
Colleen
aka Sassenach
ps - I have a true Sassenach story in my family tree. My great
grandfather - a scotsman married his second wife - an english woman!
think I've read Outlander, Dragonfly and Voyageur at least 3 or 4 times
each, but Drums and Fiery far fewer reads. I'm now just getting into Drums
again and I came across her prologue and it really touched me.
I've been doing genealogy for 5 years now. There are now 2 obsessions in my
life - the wee buiks and genealogy! I read this bit in the prologue and it
struck me how related it is to genealogy, possibly with Herself not really
realizing it:
"I've never been afraid of ghosts. I live with them daily, after all. When
I look in a mirror, my mother's eyes look back at me; my mouth curls with
the smile that lured my great-grandfather to the fate that was me.
No, how should I fear the touch of those vanished hands, laid on me in love
unknowing? How could I be afraid of those that molded my flesh, leaving
their remnants to live long past the grave?"
And the very last line of her prologue:
"But a breeze passing in a still room stirs my hair now and then in soft
affection. I think it is my mother."
I think I read this last line a year or so after my mother died. And it
brought me to tears. There were many many times after she died that I knew
she was with me.
I wonder if Herself knows just how much simple words can move anyone so
much........
Colleen
aka Sassenach
ps - I have a true Sassenach story in my family tree. My great
grandfather - a scotsman married his second wife - an english woman!
--
A face without freckles is like
a night sky without stars!!
A face without freckles is like
a night sky without stars!!