Growing up, every memorial day, my dad would take me to cemeteries to place flowers on family grave markers. Some had stones, some didn't; some just had those small metal placards stuck in the ground memorializing the final resting place of those that came and went before us. As a child, I didn't understand the gravity of those small metal stakes. As an adult, looking back, I finally begin to understand the sense of love and loss that they evoked as my parents would lovingly place flowers and clear rubble away from the graves of my older sister and my father's younger brother. The memories being relived and that only my parents could envision, being passed down to me through stories, that have now become more family legend than fact. This was my introduction into the conservation of family knowledge. Some of Our best family story tellers are now passed and now, looking back, I wish that I had paid closer attention.

Growing up, every memorial day, my dad would take me to cemeteries to place flowers on family grave markers. Some had stones, some didn't; some just had those small metal placards stuck in the ground memorializing the final resting place of those that came and went before us. As a child, I didn't understand the gravity of those small metal stakes. As an adult, looking back, I finally begin to understand the sense of love and loss that they evoked as my parents would lovingly place flowers and clear rubble away from the graves of my older sister and my father's younger brother. The memories being relived and that only my parents could envision, being passed down to me through stories, that have now become more family legend than fact. This was my introduction into the conservation of family knowledge. Some of Our best family story tellers are now passed and now, looking back, I wish that I had paid closer attention.