...In
normal life circumstances it's not really very prudent to point this
kind of thing out to a person. Mainly because people usually figure
this stuff out on their own, given the time, and if you try to force a
person to
get there before they are ready, they simply can't hear you. But
considering the fact that your situation is very 'time-sensitive' , this
situation is different. So I need for you to just trust me here. Know
that I love you more than I can ever tell you. You really are my
sister and I am SO grateful to have you and more proud of you than you
will ever, ever know. And my pride in you, my respect for you has only
continued to grow, over the years. I know you will probably never be
able to fully see yourself as I do, as others do. I believe that THIS
is the worst of the emotional legacy that you were left with and NOT the
fact that you didn't go through the 'normal' life processes in the
right order. You've been questioning the strength of your foundations
here lately...what you seem to be unable to see is that although your
foundation wasn't created in the 'normal' or even the optimal way by a
stable home
and a 'normal' family life, that it doesn't mean that it wasn't
created. Because it was. By you.
For
'normal' kids, their foundations are laid down, with great care and
thought, by 'normal' parents...much like cement is mixed and smoothly
poured down when building a house. But for people like us, our
foundations are built another way. They are built, by us, with the
stones of experience that we gather and bind together over our lives.
There
is a house two down from our home here in Eden that used to be an old
school house. It was built when my grandmother was a little girl and it
was a very big deal because, when it was done, my grandmother was given
the opportunity to actually go to school for the first time in her
life. Unfortunately, her father didn't much believe in education for
girls and so she was only able to attend through the 4th grade when her
father pulled her from the school so that she could work in the tobacco
fields. But she learned enough to read and write and she always took
such pride in her handwriting, which was impeccable.
The
story that she used to tell me about it all, the one that seemed to
bring her the most joy and pride, was not of attending this school,
however, but of how she she helped to build it. When the builders were
ready to lay the foundation for this school, they needed many stones.
So they paid the neighborhood children, my grandmother included, a penny
for each stone that the children could bring to them. Each day she and
her friends would walk a mile, each way, to the banks of the Dan River
and bring back stones until, finally, there were enough for a
foundation, two feet high, made up of four layers of smooth river rock,
covering a surface area of two thousand feet. Grandma always talked
about that experience as
'the summer we spent walking to the river for rocks.' I never did think
to ask her how many pennies she got in the end..100? 200?
Many
years later it was converted into a residential home and almost every
part of the building was remodeled, resided and renovated. Everything,
that is, but foundation, which is exactly the same as it was when it was
first built...still bearing the ghost prints from stones that my
grandmother once touched, once walked for miles to gather with her tiny
hands so that she could have a place to go to learn...it still stands - a
foundation so tall that you can easily
see the layers of stone from the street when you drive by.
Although the house has gone through several renovations with various owners, has been
virtually rebuilt from the ground up, it seems that no one has ever
thought to redo this one very important structural feature. Probably
because it would obviously be foolish to change something so beautiful
that has also proven, over the years, to be more sturdy and strong than
any cement.
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