I have talked a lot about my Indian grandmother and Irish grandfather
but I have not talked much about my English grandmother. She was just as important to me. Just as Loved. She taught me my love of reading, How to set a "proper" table and the other things that "ladies" should know. She and my grandfather had three children. My two aunts and my father. For some reason they divorced when the kids were all little. World War 11 broke out and my grandfather wanted to join the Army. He was too old but he was a sharpshooter so the Army allowed him to join. He and my grandmother wrote back and forth and fell in love again. They decided that they would remarry when he got home from the war. They would raise the children. They would be a family again. Three days before my grandfather was due to come home, he recieved orders to check out a bridge that the Germans were using. He stepped on a landmine and never came home again. He is buried somewhere in Luxemberg. I have the yellow telegram that says.... WE REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT SGT.FRED PETTY WAS KILLED IN ACTION ON FEBRUARY 12,1944. It is yellowed with age and wrinkled from being folded so many times. I imagine that it was stained with my grandmothers tears. When I was 14 years old and visiting my grandmother, I went into the kitchen where I saw here humming a tune and dancing around and around. It was a beautiful song and I asked her what it was. She told me it was called "I'll be seeing You". She told me that when she heard it she always wondered about my grandfather. Where he was, if he was sleeping in a foxhole in the rain or if he was thinking of her. She went on to say that NOW she knows that she WILL be seeing him again. It would just take a few years longer. I wanted that song played at her funeral. I imagine them dancing even now.

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This song is dedicated to Tucker and Nathan ( my grandson). The CUTEST, most precious little boys in the world. This song makes me smile...

It's time that I deal with it. He's gone. He will never come back. What was it about him that made him the love of my life? His laugh?
The way that he held me? His smile? I don't know. But I DO know that I have to go on. I have to give someone else a chance to love me. He was my best friend. He was my hero. He was my lover. He was everything to me. He has moved on and I need to do the same. He is missing out on so much. One day it will hit him and he will have regrets. I know that to be true. He was Patrick and I was Julia. He was my morning star and every dream that I ever dreamed. He was coffee in bed and sending flowers just because... He is a father. He is a Marine. I hope that he is happy. This is my goodbye to him. The dream is over and my life goes on. I pray that the day will come when he wonders about us. When he realizes what is really the truth. I pray the day will come when I can hear his name and not have that stabbing pain in my heart. The pictures came down tonight. The books are put away. The cards are now in a drawer so that when I am an old lady... I can pull them out, read them and smile. I will realize that because of him, I knew what love was. I thank him for that. Goodbye.

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Back when Kevin would come and visit me, he would laugh at how Southerners hugged EVERYONE. People in grocery lines, strangers, children. Life is good. Hug someone today. You'll be glad that you did.. I promise..

The great Chief In Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. How can you buy or sell the sky? The warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. Yet we do not own the freshness of the air or the sparkle of the water. How can you buy them from us? Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of the land to him is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother but his enemy and when he has conquered it he moves on. He leaves his fathers grave, and his childrens birthright is forgotten.
There is no quiet place in the white mans cities. No place to hear the leaves of spring or the rustle of insect wings. But perhaps because I am a savage and do not understand - The clatter only seems to insult the ears. And what is there to life if a man cannot hear the lovely cry of the whipporwill or the arguments of the frogs around the pond at night?
The whites too shall pass - perhaps sooner than other tribes. Continue to contaminate your bed and you will one night suffocate in your own waste. When the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses all tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with the scent of many men, and the view of the ripe hills blotted by talking wires. Where is the Eagle? Gone. Where is the buffalo? Gone. And what is it to say goodbye to the swift and the hunt, the end of living and the beginning of survival.<
Chief Seattle- A Suquamish Chief