Saturday, June 30, 2012

The O'Shaughnessy Tree

The O'Shaughnessy Chapel at Kilmacduagh Castle in Ireland


Yesterday was fabulous! We buried my aunt. Actually two very warm employess of St Joseph Cemetery did the actual burying and we are grateful to them. I believe they were equally grateful that we kept the service brief.

It was 102 degrees.

I mean it though when I say it was a fabulous day. My aunt is done with this mediocre world and has moved on to sheer joy. Thank you blog freinds for all your kind words and thanks for all you snail mail folks who sent so many cards. So appreciated. After we said goodbye (My sister Mary did some an awesome reading!) we headed over to a nearby German restaurant to sit in blessed coolness, to eat and drink and tell more family stories.

So wonderful to be with my own family, my sisters families as well as several cousins we had not seen in a very long time. Turns out we had quite a few stories buried inside us and we recommitted to getting together more often. A couple of us are very interested in the formal genealogy of our family and plans were made to share charts, photos etc...

We all realized that we are now IT, the generation responsible for gathering, recording and hopefully publishing our O'Shaughnessy Family history. It's time to get to work.

It's also time for the third shower of the day. This heat stretch is getting tough. Even now just sitting at my computer I have been blinded by the deluge of sweat pouring off my forehead and into my eyes. Every year about this time we re-think our decision not to put AC in this old farmhouse and each year it gets a little harder to hang tough and we find ourselves spending more time with the GK's in their Slide 'N Slide.

10 comments:

  1. I wish my family had a castle with a tower like that. Sorry I have not emailed you to thank you for my fine presents, but my email has been going wrong and I am trying to fix it now. Keep cool. Tom x

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  2. Your aunt would have been happy to look down on all her family gathered together in her honour.

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  3. So glad that her memorial to life was shared by family and that it was a nice day. And German food doesn't hurt either! :)

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  4. I'm so very sorry about your aunt... my condolences. I'm glad you got together with your cousins though... that's the good part!

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  5. A 'good' funeral is so much better than a solemn, wailing, stuck-up, job. I don't like funerals at the best of times, but as they are essential, let's all make them 'celebrations'.

    I had a teacher called Shaughnessy (no O); he was short rotund and very amusing....

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  6. So sorry about you aunt. She is experiencing an everlasting joyful life now. And sorry about no air conditioning. I rely on it now for the most part. I remember doing without it as a child in Chicago and I did survive, don't know how though. Blessings.
    Abiga/Karen

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  7. I missed that about your aunt. No matter, the loss is still felt. Genealogy is another of my passions. So interesting! I regret not getting more information from my greats before they passed on.

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  8. So sorry to read about your Aunt's passing. I am an O'Shaughnessy too and was wondering if you had started on your genealogy. I have done quite a bit of research from just before our family came over to the U.S. Please let me know if you have any information to share. Who knows? Maybe we could be long lost relatives! I love the chapel. I am going to Pinterest it so I can keep it in mind for my trip to Ireland someday.

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