I spent a part of today roaming the hills of my grandparents farm. It has become a bit of a ritual - each year during the last week of March, I travel a few short miles and enter another lifetime. I go to honor my dad- who passed away when I was five and who's birthday was in the last week of March. I go because it is, for me, a thin place, a place where I feel connected to God and connected to those people who loved me unconditionally. I go to appreciate the wonderful silence that can only be felt in the country. I go because I can.
Not many people have a place like that to return to. I realize how blessed I am. When I was small I thought the words "over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house we go" had been written just for me. I have only to drive across that bridge and up a wooded hill to begin to feel the connection. When I turn the corner onto the country road I feel whole.
I took my sixteen year old son with me today. It was good to walk the field and the path with him by my side. Good to tell him stories, to try and help him know this piece of myself, this piece of our family. I want nothing more than for my sons to know this part of their history, to understand in some small way the love, the faith and the values of the people who lived on this hill.
If you have a place you can return to - then you are blessed. Go there. Remember- savor and thank God for it. If you don't have a place to go to, close your eyes right now and remember. Let memory and imagination take you back, just for a moment, to that place where your were loved beyond measure. Let the feelings wash over you. Thank God for it.
It will be worth the trip....
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