Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: The United Kingdom (01/22/09)
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TITLE: Multiple Choice Future | Previous Challenge Entry
By Sandra DeHoogh
01/28/09 -
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What did it matter? Their exploration allowed me to be a spectator, to retreat from an especially difficult season and to soak in life with, and also beyond, my family. I lagged behind and admired the group of walkers that was three generations of my family. My children living life fully, soaking up each other and enjoying being enjoyed. My parents reliving youthful adventures through the stamina of their grandkids. My husband with his commanding stride; gosh, I’d forgotten he was so .. err… manly. Family are like air aren’t they? Something we cannot live without although almost never applauded.
I chuckled at the timing of these thoughts of my relatives. My great grandmother would have sailed into this very harbour, maybe even right under my feet, some seventy years back. How daunting would that have been? Bringing two small girls alone across an ocean to be reunited with her man. With age and hopefully growing wisdom now on my side, I can appreciate the emotional guts that journey would have taken. Fleeing war, leaving all their family and immigrating into a language they didn’t even understand.
It led me to wonder of how many stories have travelled through this port. My nana sailing from England. My father in-law emigrating from Holland. What did they feel, expect, and hope for? And before them; De Quiros, a Portuguese explorer who called our land “La Australia del Espiritu Santo” or “Southland of the Holy Spirit”. These stories aren’t random but have reached into the future and affected even my destiny. What young girl, separated from her family, looked at squaller on these same shores I see now? She would have come off the planks of a convict ship fresh from England, the country who declared herself mother over “New Holland” over two century’s ago? Would she have believed that her home land would be sailing a ship bearing her Queens name that just squeezes under this colossal coat hanger at low tide?
I appeared to be staring from the bridge right through the Opera House. Mark snuggled in from behind and rested his chin on my shoulder bringing me back from my mental wander. My babies were almost at the end of the bridge now. He must have walked back all this way just to escort me to our tribe. I felt loved but even more so when he offered me a dandelion he’d found growing in the cracks of the walkway. Some would see merely a weed but it was far more to me.
Here was my soul mate, my sojourner, keeping me close to his heart. We were crossing our own bridges, finding our own adventures and discovering substance in life together. Sometimes we find hard times like those in the generations before us. But like this flower which grew through adversity into an amazing, fragrant piece of beauty, we grow in the manure life dumps on us and come out as a sweet aroma, as God’s artwork, as living proof that no matter what life throws at us, we can still choose how we respond. And these choices, good or bad, will outlive us reaching into my children’s childrens generations.
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It kind of seemed more like an "Australia" entry than a "UK" one, though.
Another place I hope to visit some day, for sure. Thanks for this well-written entry.
Good writing.