Persistence

She wouldn't leave me be.

I was catching up on local obituaries yesterday, looking for people from my county of interest, or people who are related to me. I'd gotten behind and had to go through three weeks of online newspapers.

Well, as I scanned the obits, I noticed her, Joyce Janeen. Her obit was in the paper for several days running, so I saw her a few times.

She wouldn't leave me be.

I noted that she was raised in a town we'd moved away from last year and let it go at that.

She wouldn't leave me be.

I took a look at my database and saw that I had already entered some of her relatives, so after some consideration, I decided to copy her obituary and picture.

This afternoon I added the obituaries to my database. When I got to Joyce's record, I remembered the reticence I had, wasting my time on adding records for a person whose only connection is that she lived in a town I had lived in for a decade.

I finished entering records for her children and grandchildren (it was an amazingly complete obituary...) and took another, closer look.

Her husband is my 4th cousin. Her family is part of my family; for some reason she wanted them added to my database.

Sometimes the spirit has to whisper several times before I listen.

But I'm paying better attention.