These days I have been at a loss for words. We are well into February and my monthly blog post has not been written.
What does one say when the world as we have known it suddenly seems to be so threatening? I am a senior and my days are numbered, but what of the years my children and grandchildren have left? What will it be like for them? Will they lose their democracy and their freedom to be who they were created to be? Will they have to leave their home for a safer place? Many in our neighboring, democratic country are forced to do that right now.
I am reminded of a wall hanging I gave to a daughter for Christmas and I ponder the words:
I think about my maternal ancestors, the Epp family, standing under a tree for a family photo, before they left their comfortable life in Ukraine. It was the only home they knew and suddenly it became too dangerous for them to stay. They had lost their father to a typhoid epidemic a few years earlier. My grandmother and her young family chose not to join them on the trek to Canada. That decision caused a lot of suffering and loss for her family. She was reunited with them in Canada in 1944.
My grandmother, second from left in the photo below. She has my mother on her lap, her son beside her, my grandfather behind her.
It is good to remember the past and learn from it. I gave each of my grandchildren a memory box. Grandson Ivan is remembering his Opa with some of the memorabilia he has collected.
"Hang tough through a cold spell"
