Emma . Whosezat ? me am as I am m/ma/me/am
Emma is the name of the lady whose life was cut short. A slip of a thing she was the lady my dad always longed to see. his Mum. She died when he was four. He could never get her face. But he did remember her smell ….the lavender, and he kept a tear stained photo of her in his drawer, And my god she looks alarmingly like me. Same colouring,eyes, slim wrists.. So if really like me I don’t understand why my Grandfather fell in love with her at all. But they did he was 17 and she 15 when they met. And she was only aged 30 when she died, He never looked at another woman. And she only ever loved him, a bit of a rogue who wanted gold, and she sat waiting for him. But Emma is so long ago. So it doesn’t make sense that I know her, but I do. I have dug around and found so much on them both. Most is official stuff. And thank you to the documents I found I’ve even heard her voice, a scream! (no ghosts), which is more than my dad did. Emma is also (be one by one) all the women who have gone before her, the ones I know about or have heard about; I have got their names if nothing else. They are the ones I could never have known. Emma is also the one of the women (one by one) who I might have known but never seen, got snobbish or maybe taken too soon, like her.Emma is also my Mum as I knew up to a few years back before she died, but now I know her as the person she wanted to be, Emma is all of the people Mum loved and who I might not loved as much as she did. The Mum who may have had more wisdom than me, but probably not. It doesn’t matter.I love you Emma all of you em/ma/me/am . And I look up to you from down here and I hope I am not talking to myself. There again I hope I am not talking to ghosts,I don’t do that because I really don’t believe in ghosts and you were here as real once,always real just simply there before me. I seem to be on top of the new pile, may be not but everyone left for other places so on these terms I am on my own, and I need you Emma more than ever. Stay.
Rosie. the child in me(& bobs who is still around and gilly-bobs too OMG – thanks dad) naivety, stupidity, mini me, quite a lot of me, don’t entirely want to loose me.me. Gillian lurks here But don’t ever call me Gillian. Like what teachers did.
Gillian or ‘Heh you’or no name at all. for the me who gets it wrong. especially the one whshe is wrong and has to turn round and hear that name. Put me in a hole. Watch the hole. Hold your breath. You will never see the name here.
Gill McGrath for a kind of me. Not quite all of me. Rosie and the best bits of Emma hover a little here. Stay there girls . Don’t go
Gill McG. for the me in charge of me. Can do anything. All things to all people and doesn’t mind.but needs to be Gill first, or it doesn’t work.
And Gill. (is all the aforesaid) who counts cars and files things and collects things and is mildly obsessive about certain things and has a love affair with paper is fairly orderly on a good day. But vulnerable to falling out of trees.Getting it wrong. Sometimes talks too much. Reels in shock . But basically on the very best of days is also none of the above!
Gill McGrath 
Absolutely brilliant.
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Yes you are for finding it!
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It began as interest. Now it has become much more. Poor Rosie.
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I won’t comment on any more of Rosie’s letters to Emma. I feel I have gone too far and I now feel like I am invading a privacy. But thank you so much for letting me look in this far. But I will still look at Gill’s photos and writings.
Regards
John
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Its made me think a bit on how to progress John so no worries!.There is so much I have here in hard copy about their complicated lives We are talking Victorian and beyond you realize It sounds sort of spooky but its not.and . I haven’t let that much out here really. I never knew anyone of course and no one recently in the family knew said people or realised things, but our own later generations still had the ripples in one way or another which is crazy really. The strands are complicated. Its like linking back and swinging along trees and throwing ropes around and it all makes life look very short!
Actually writing the way I do ( rather ambiguously) and bringing the now into the past and back again helps me to find out what I dare say out loud. They were real people with a lot of pride and real threads run through. I still respect the fact they cannot speak for themselves and I grew to like them anyway( Wierd). The letters are an attempt to see how I would talk if they were still about and had the chance on a very informal level, like one of the family and as if they know me……and from now to there its merely time. . Anyway if I hadn’t found out about them I was going to make it up and paint their portraits and do an art exhibition. But there is no need to I have gathered em up like leaves in the end… some are infamous enough to get the photos or the reports! so much of ‘ them’ is all recorded! I really couldn’t make it up…. on one of the police reports and arrests (not of Emma poor soul) she screamed and it was written down…. it was like hearing her voice. Plus some of the stuff known(like what was said over the next following generations… about their lives is terribly sad) I wanted her to know that Jack turned out OK and she needn’t have worried. That is the meaning behind the letters like a direct conversation which helps getting to grips with the facts . The story is as complicated as hell…but the letters I write in what ever shape or form they take are always about making her feel better…… and so on. Although I have even felt irritated about her at times……which is useful to realize. They were all from London Soho at that! by the way. So that says quite a bit! Well I don’t feel invaded with you rummaging through so that’s a lesson learned . It kind of helps actually! thanks (honestly) regards Gill 🙂 ( don’t stop reading if you can bear it. I am interested with the reactions)
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If I was in London I’d have to have coffee and a big long chat. But that will never happen now. I will comment, but I still feel I have pushed my way in a little too boldly.
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😉
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Yes Rosie sorts it out. I have got massive family history project with stories all true running all sides.. What started as something simple got more and more interesting a couple of things I needed to make sense of.its difficult to make it in one story so thought I would start by asking people at differrnt stages what they would be thinking. Don’t expect them to answer by the way I am not spooky. Hha. I am writing this on an iPad and it goes wobbly . so i can’t write further right now. Talk again…:-)
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