This small house

This small house is part of who I am.
I never lived in it but this is the house my great grandmother Bessie (Elizabeth) married into in 1897.
It is the house in which my grandmother Catherine Hurley was born,  in 1905.
It is the house she left to go to Peabody, Massachusetts in 1925.
This small house is part of who I am.

There is something solid about this house.
Something enduring...

There were hard times and sad times in this house.
There was rejoicing...

And all of it... part of who I am.

In coming to know these women, my mother's mothers,
I come to know myself.

I too am solid and enduring.
I too have known hard times and sad times.
I too rejoice.
I am one of the mothers now.


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