Day 439 Ubuntu

Daily Note

Every day, a photograph, a poem. Today, the Daily Create was “abridged classics,” and I chose a favorite children’s “classic” with special memories for our family.

Twenty-three years and a great-grandson later, we vacationed with my son, daughter [in-law], and granddaughter to North Dakota, enjoying the drive with stops at great sites for Allison to learn– from trees and badlands to dinosaurs to bats– we found amazing places for a child’s learning experiences.

At a stop in Great Falls, where we walked in the footsteps of Sakakawea, we enjoyed the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center where Allison found the gift shop before we did. She’d cozied up to a giant brown bear reading a book off the shelf: Brown Bear, Brown Bear. Her mother found her and looked at me, “My gosh– she’s reading!” At three years old, with a repetitive and predictive book, yes, she could read! It was a picture perfect moment:

And, when she graduated from high school, she presented us, her grandparents, with the same book, inscribed with her thanks, an expression of Ubuntu— I am because you are. Indeed, we are all related, and the ripples of our lives enriched hers, as her life enriches ours.

And so it is with all our children and grandchildren. Yes, so it is with all our connections. Hopefully, we’ll live through this awful time and begin to treat each other with the awe we should.

I am in awe of all in my family as each blooms and sees the world with the ripples of those around them. Life is good.

Ubuntu

On my shelf, Brown Bear: 

granddaughter’s memories; she

is because we are.

Sheri Edwards
052621 14636521
Poetry/Photography