Monday, May 31, 2010

freedom and finding one's way

They are doing bridge work around Columbia so if you are biking expect detours and not good ones. Expect to ride up through the Country Woods subdivision and then down K to KK to the trail to get to Cooper's Landing. But there are some mighty steep hills so beware and have your heart ready.

Today is Memorial Day. A day of remembrance. Today is the day my grandmother would always go to Gower, Missouri and lay flowers on her mother's and father's graves. They ended up in Gower because they began in Gower then moved to San Francisco, where grandma spent her childhood years, returning to Missouri when she became deathly ill. They lived in Gower with family (although there was family in San Francisco also). Moved to St. Joseph, Missouri where grandma met grandpa (in highschool) and fell in love (head-over-heels and looking at life through rose colored glasses as she told me) It was there that grandma and grandpa had my aunt, uncle and mom, where then she (mom) went to school, where she met my dad, got pregnant, got married. St. Joseph is where my parents bought the farm (another family place for four generations prior) and where there was a large planting of peonies because it was down the road from a graveyard and great-grandmother and great-grandfather Hall farmed their small one hundred and twenty acres very productively. Growing grapes and strawberries and raspberries, blackberries and flowers and vegetables and livestock and hens. During the winter they travelled to Cuba before Castro, then to Florida while my great-maiden-aunt stayed and managed the place. And during the early, mid-summers they travelled also. Car trips to Colorado where the family had another farm on the high plains of Eastern Colorado. They called it the ranch and all that remain of it are pictures. But the farm is still there though the peonies are gone and weeds have grown over the multiple flower gardens and the house has fallen to ruin. There have been attempts to clean and resurrect the gardens.

These are days of uncertainty. Personally, professionally. They are days of looking forward and moving on. Janis Joplin sang of 'freedom' being just 'another word for nothing left to lose'. That it may be, for some. But for me freedom is a 'life more abundant' and it is a gift. It is the gift of a slate wiped clean, of sins forgiven. External life is there, to be lived and it is wonderful to have cars and houses and kids and spouses and friends who love us and a country which allows each person to live as they want (within reason), and dreams to achieve. And I do thank our military for everything they do and am beyond grateful. But true freedom is that which is eternal and it is God granted, the price which was paid on the cross.

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