Letters of appreciation
I guess like older people once we see our life passing by we reflect on the past. I guess if there is a difference it is that I am publically expressing this to try and heal some of the things that fragment our live in some way.
WHERE I WAS BORN AND RAISED
In The Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia – I believe that the basis of the letters of appreciation was fostered in this environment
I REMEMBER
I was privileged to have grown up in a small farming community in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. The memories of that period of my life even that bad ones become good now.
I was a child when the war ended so even though we were involved In the Korean conflict it wasn’t a major war, so you could say I got the good after effects of the war. The environment was good for rabbit hunting, squirrel hunting trout fishing etc. And my parents stayed together to help me get through the whole process of growing up. I remember being alone, the freedom to just be, To hunt and fish without anyone else. I remember the freedom of a life without laws, rules and regulations like we have them now, to control and direct my life. Roads that weren’t paved and life wasn’t helter scelter (a nervous mess).
I remember Just being an innocent child and kid caught up in playing the game of life. I remember the innocence of youth
But I also remember it was a hard life
(I don't understand it that way now though)
The attitude and the way people were conscious at that time helped make it so. If they had appreciated life more, the work wouldn’t have been as hard; life would have been easier then.
I remember houses without running water indoor plumbing or a bathroom.
I remember going to the outhouse when it was too cold and being in it when it was too hot. I remember hoeing corn forever, working in the hay fields, and chopping wood and no end to the chores on the farm and the cold war fear.
Now I remember friend and loved ones that have gone on but most of all I remember a time I could not imagine being as old as I am.
A time I could not have imagined the life that I have lived.
Somehow during the process of living it seems to have got very tangled up
My generation made things better and worse
My generation (the baby boomers) was the first to create a real breakup of the family. Before we had schools the parents and children were together most of the time. Schools was one of the first institutions to separate parents and children
Few of us come into this reality and get to share very much of each other’s life.
I was blessed to have a good home and parents who stayed together while I was growing up. Most of the families in the community I grew up in stayed together. Today the sons grow up and are gone the fathers get old and die and generally speaking theirs not a lot that shared during the course of their lives.
Too much TV other activities at school, --jobs for the kids that take them away from home unlike the jobs of a family farm.
Now in our reality they have stepmothers and stepfathers etc. that they spend their lives with just as much or more than their own blood relatives and we are the ones responsible.
We are not immune to the criticism of reality being what it is; we passed down what the children now experience.
We continued what our fathers and mothers created and created an even more materialistic society.
The environment of that mountain home I was in was a different time, a different way, a different feeling – how could I have known then how fortunate, how rich I really was.
If for any reason I was to have wealth in terms of possessions and money mansions etc. all the richness of the world pails in comparison to the richness of my childhood. What you need to know is where you the people I grew up with fit in to my appreciation.
My life is filled with gratitude now.
The people who I became familiar with all the way from my parents to what some could think as foes or enemies. There are no friends or foes now –just people, just life and living –just what was, is, and always will be.
Mayon J Jackson
CONTINUE THE LETTERS OF APPRECIATION
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I LOVE LIFE
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