Dearest Great-grandmother and Little Willie Bea:

Never is there a time I look at these pictures of your graves, and Willie Bea's sweet little face on hers, that I do not have a tear to wipe away...I weep for the lives that you were unable to live, and for my grandfather.

My heart breaks for my grandfather, because he grieved you both. I know he did.  I wonder what his life would have been like if just one of you would not have left us so soon, and so tragically, when he was at such a tender age. 

Your brief lives, and your untimely deaths are imprinted on me, and part of what make me who I am, just as surely as my blue eyes came to me from the ancestors we three share...we are daughters of a common family tree.

Your lives were short and I never knew you.  But, these last few years, hardly a day has gone by that I do not think of you.  All this has happened since I have gotten older, and I have a little bit of life to look back on, and I see how your deaths have affected my life, and will affect the lives for generations after me. 

I mourn for what might have been for my grandfather and his children, if you would have been here longer. I wonder how different his life would have been-- if either of you would not have left here so young. 

I cannot help but to remember you.  I will be thinking of you often for the rest of my life. 

You are not forgotten.

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