Yesterday was Lavina's birthday, so Margie drove into town, picked Kalib and Jobe up and brought them home. She did this so that Jacob and Lavina could go out and celebrate however they chose, free for one night of their responsibilities as parents.
In the evening, I sat with Jobe on my lap, Margie at my side.
Jobe was all attuned. I wonder what he heard?
When I looked into Jobe's face, for some reason my mind suddenly shot back to a very specific year, one that I was not here for - 1863. I tried to picture a selection of his direct ancestors, all at the same moment in that year. I saw a Navajo man, with his family, in custody and mourning at the Bosque Redondo.
I saw an Apache man, with his rifle, ambling peacefully about among the corn fields and wild peach trees growing in the red earth beneath the red rock cliffs of Carrizo Canyon.
I saw a Mormon man, strolling amidst his fields, two or three of his seven wives walking with him and a dozen or so of his 63 children.
All of these events were taking place within a relative short distance of each other. Among these people were individuals who, if they met under the wrong circumstances, might have killed each other.
And then no Jobe would ever have been.
I don't know if any of these mental pictures that came to me were at all accurate.
I thought that I should give myself an assignment to trace Jobe's ancestry back to a certain day in 1863 and find out.
But how would I do that?
;)
Ditto for Kalib, and his ancestry.