Questions I Can’t Ask My Sister Anymore

I wish I could ask my sister

Yesterday, I wanted to ask my sister a question. It’s a question I can’t ask anymore. My sister Katharine’s birthday was this past Saturday. I miss her. She’s been gone less than two years, and there are so many questions she has not been able to answer. We can’t ask Katharine anymore. [You can read more about here.]

Katharine was our historian. She remembered people and events and history. When we wanted to know something, we only needed to ask her. She remembered everything – until she didn’t. Dementia did its thing. A few years before she died, she couldn’t explain things anymore.

How many times in the past two years did a sister in our Whats App ask a question, and another sister replied, “Katharine would know.”

Sitting on top of my desk (purchased by another sister who had our papa’s desk at her house for years) is an old basket filled with stones. That same basket sat on my father’s desk. There’s a story behind that basket, but I don’t know the story, and I can’t ask Katharine.

I asked my sisters via WhatsApp, and Alice replied, “Katharine would know.”  The oldest of the six of us added, “What Alice said.”

I cleaned out the rocks and checked the neatly folded paper towel in the bottom of the basket. Certainly, I thought, I’d put a slip of paper there explaining the basket and the rocks, but there was no slip, and I can’t ask Katharine anymore.

I thought we’d pretty much asked our questions and had our answers. We even put a family book together with so much information about our childhoods, our home place, the furniture pieces and even the books that had a special history. It’s all documented in our Family Jaunt of Memories printed in 2010. 

Of course, there are things we forgot to ask, or forgot to document, or thought we’d always remember. Now, here we are and the one who could always recall that information is no longer with us.

answering questions before they are asked

One day, our kids will want to know something – or wish they’d asked. The only way to be sure they will have accurate information is if we tell them the stories and document them for future posterity.

That may not seem that important now, but one day, one of our offspring will wonder. He will wish he knew. That day he will wish he could ask – one more time.