The attached photograph is a recent find in the on-going excavation of my home place. It’s a photo of my parents at Brookgreen Gardens, south of Myrtle Beach, SC. Judging by the flora and fauna, plus the corsage Mom is wearing, I’m guessing this to be Easter vacation 1954…I’m the bun in the oven. I confess that seeing my mother’s well-disguised baby bump brought me to tears, it’s the first time I’ve seen this stage of her life or mine. There are a couple other photos, much more playful than these, that haven’t aged as well. Nestled with these photos was a naughty note from my Dad while he was on the Carolina to California run for Turner Trucking. It’s a sweet glimpse of my parents and their love for one another. A love cut short in 1968 when my father died after a 10-year battle with cancer.
Brookgreen Gardens is a lovely, ‘garden museum with the most significant outdoor collection of figurative sculpture by American artists in the world.’ Mother took my sister and I there while on a camping trip in ’70…my pubescent self was trite and sullen and I found the statuary anything but majestic. But looking at these photos, I realize my mother was likely experiencing a far different view that July day. Perhaps she saw Dad twirling her around in the gazebo, plucking a blossom and caressing her cheek or playfully jumping from behind the hedges to her delight. Maybe his fingers softly laced with hers, his arm reassuringly around her shoulders, his smile as ‘only Dean could smile’.
We experience things differently, when we’ve experienced them differently.
Though this will not be published for several days, I’m actually writing this on Memorial Day. My thoughts are fraught with images of Old Glory, the Pledge of Allegiance, soldiers’ war weary faces, forlorn women and children. For many of us, the travesty of war has barely crossed our consciousness; our recent wars have been fought not for a direct threat to our homeland, but from the steadfast conviction that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights. Our men and women of arms have fought, and died, valiantly so that citizen’s of foreign lands can know the freedom we Americans deem as our birthright. To those that serve and have served our country, Memorial Day reflects a deep experience in their conscious memory.
We experience things differently, when we’ve experienced them differently.
Which brings me to my final thought. If our experience with Jesus is only through a Sunday Worship Service, our parents’ ole time religion or an authors’ well written words, then how rich or deep is that experience? When we really know the Man, Jesus…we experience Him differently than if we only know of Him.
Reflectively,
Deana Kennedy
Co-Pastor & Life Groups Director
Your post moved me to tears. Thank you for sharing such a personal memory, and a point of contemplation about our relationship with Jesus.
Beautifully written! Wonderful and thought provoking. Enjoyed!
Thank you for some insight to your upbringing. I’m so sorry about the loss of your father when you were so young. At least you had the Heavenly Father to turn to. You certainly have a gift for writing. Thank you for sharing.