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Archiver > TNDICKSO > 2000-06 > 0960140815
From: j <>
Subject: [TNDICKSO] Sunday Afternoon Rocking
Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2000 13:46:55 -0400
"Re-building a House" (from the "Sunday Afternoon Rocking" series)
Afternoon All,
No doubt you are surprised that this week Sunday Afternoon Rocking is a
mite late. Indeed it is, both due to a lot of "goings on" in my life, some
stressful and some celebratory. But it is primarily due to a hard drive
crash that did not get my back issues, but certainly wiped out the many
"future" editions of the column you were to see, and which I kept as "back
up" for those busy times of life. In short, "I am building my house"
again. More than a few of you have had this frustrating occurence happen
yourselves, I am sure. And more than a few of you have probably learned
along the way that a hard drive is not a good place to store those things
"near and dear to one's heart" without a backup. It has been a valuable
lesson, and typically, has set me thinking.
The crash of a hard drive may indeed be frustrating, even somewhat
heart-breaking (I am still realizing the messages I have lost), but it is
very very small in the great scheme of things. I survived close to forty
years never knowing the value of one, a lot of that period not knowing what
one was <smile>, I am sure this is not any life-changing event! A minor
inconvenience, perhaps, one that will take a bit of time to recuperate, but
nothing more. And in counting blessings, and considering losses, a lot of
thoughts have tapped in...thoughts of the losses of others...thoughts of
the legacies of losses.
In an earlier column I told you of a great great aunt, whose house burned
not once but three times, and each time she straightened her shoulders,
dried her tears, looked life square in the eye, and rebuilt...three times
in the same spot...even when one of those house fires meant the deaths of
three of her children. Although I never knew this woman, and the only
story of her that survives in this family line is the one I relate, this
story since the day I found three tiny graves on a hill and heard it, has
been a source of both awe and inspiration to me. I may not know the color
of her eyes, her hair, what she enjoyed, what she dreamed, the sound of her
laughter, or anything of her personality beyond this trait....but her story
is a legacy with a lesson beyond measure.
"Build your house again". I have seen the story repeated in cemeteries,
over and over, and so have you. The man whose wives met untimely deaths in
childbirth, the man who began again and again to give his living children a
home, to rebuild a family. The woman who raised a large brood alone after
the untimely death of her husband, or married again and gave her children a
fresh start. We see the story in the historical accounts of communities
that at sometime in their past found a population faltering due to disease
or economic woes...and somehow managed to draw a weak but brave breath,
pull color into its cheeks again, and greet the world again, sometimes with
fresh growth, sometimes by simply surviving in some manner of speaking
despite a tragedy. We see the story in the migrations of the past brought
about by political upheavals, disease, economic woes....and always we know
that in hearts burned hope that in a new place with a fresh start there was
a new chance. We see the story in deeds and we see it in wills, if we but
have the wit to read between the lines, and realize that we are as surely
seeing a documentation of hope as we are a documentation of legal records.
Who among us has not the story in our legacy of a "rebuilt house"? Each of
us has not one, but many stories. Many of us know the first ancestor who
sailed the seas to this country, and the story of why. Many of us know
which ancestor left the established settlements of the east and conquered
trails westward. More than a few of us have ancestors who walked the Trail
of Tears, who were driven from a home simply because of "being in the wrong
place at the wrong time". We have ancestors who knew the division of a
nation and fought the battle that ultimately meant that house, at least,
still stood. For every event related in a history book, we can match an
ancestor who lived in the time, and either knew the "rebuilding of a house"
on a national level or a personal one. We draw inspiration from their
stories, and we recognize the truth in our own lives.
If there is one thing about the human spirit that must be universal,
indigenous to all times and all peoples, it must be hope. Hope has rebuilt
houses when disease, famine, fires, and politics have destroyed them. Hope
has been responsible for revived families, revived communities and revived
nations. Hope has kindled a spirit crushed beneath the heels of all of
those things life dishes out that can't be helped, and all of those unfair
things that could have been helped but were not. Hope has breathed life
into a repentant heart and given renewal to a worn and tired one. Hope has
opened the door to medical discoveries and life-easing inventions. Hope has
been the unnamed character in all of our family trees that insured there
was one. If there is one trait that humankind holds in common across the
centuries, across the world, and one trait responsible for the march of
timeless survival it must be this.
The ancient Greeks told the story of a young woman given a box by Zeus, and
told never to open it. Typically human, curiosity overcame Pandora, and
when she opened the box all the evils of the world swarmed into it. Grief,
sinful natures, pain, disease, heart-break, famine, war....until she
slammed the box shut and buried her head in sorrow over what she had
released upon mankind. There came a knock from the inside of the box, and
a tiny voice begging, "Let me out!" Finally, hearing no evil in that still
small voice, she eased open the cover again. One last gift flew out....and
it was Hope.
Whether it be a myth, born of convictions of the past no longer subscribed
to by any of those populating the earth or not, the story relates an
ancient truth. Hope is all that keeps us trudging.
I often think it is not the names, the dates, the "facts" behind a family
line that is the most important thing of all this we do at all...but the
legacy that documentation can teach us. Consider the common thread next
time you admire that family lineage you can trace sixteen
generations. Consider the element that brought it to today, and at what
points that element might have seemed to be no more than dying embers, and
at what point it sprang flaming to provide a new light to a family in
darkness. Consider Hope a legacy.
just a thought,
jan
Copyright ©2000JanPhilpot
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(Note: Afternoon Rocking messages are meant to be passed on, meant to be
shared...simply share as written without alterations...and in entirety.
Thanks, jan)
Sunday Afternoon Rocking columns are distributed weekly on the list Sunday
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