Last night made me think...

...so today, I have tried to be mindful of my err. My nieces and nephews stayed the night last night w/my mom and I just asked my brother if I could have the kids through tonight as well. With my kids being homeschooled and my nieces and nephews in traditional school, our families are on different schedules. Not to mention the fact that my brother has married and is divided between two families now and they live 45 minutes away now, instead of 15. I love my family and love that we are as close as we are, physically and emotionally.

I feel very protective of that bond and work very hard to keep the connection because of what I know can happen if I don't. I rarely talk to my aunt or two uncles--it's been one year since I had a phone conversation with my aunt and years since I've seen or talked to my uncles. I have no relationship with my maternal cousins and little to no relationship with my paternal cousins--we played together as children, just as mine are now but I think I can safely say that my children have a special closeness with their cousins that I never had with mine, despite ALL of our childhood time together.

They are outside now playing freeze dance--my daughter is playing Ella's Christmas CD and the others will dance and lip sync until the music is turned off--then, FREEZE! It's cute. They're having fun and building memories. Which, is all we really have possession of in this world--the memories we build, keep and share along the way.

Speaking of memories, my grandmother shared her own with us yesterday before Thanksgiving lunch. Her paternal grandmother was a Cherokee Indian and traveled the Trail of Tears--I was awe struck! I was immediately honored to have had this woman, my great-great grandmother, survive the treachery of the white man, live above the abuse of rights and surely bodies and still create a life for herself and her family that would eventually lead to ours, mine. She became a cornerstone of what I know and who I love.

What was so interesting to me, with all the inaccuracies surrounding the original harvest feast/peace giving feast/thanks giving feast between the puritans and original inhabitants of the "New World", I, a white, privileged person of mixed descent, met my own original inhabitant that day--if only her spirit, our two worlds blended into a clarity of heritage--a clearer understanding of where I come from, who I owe my life to and how intimately connected we are as human inhabitants of this earth.

Thank you my Cherokee great-great grandmother, I love you and your legacy.