Something I've learned....

What's that saying about "too soon old, too late smart"?? Something like that?

When I was growing up, my grandmother lived with us for many years. She wasn't inclined to talk about the war years or even what came before that and I wasn't too concerned because it was boring anyway. Well, here's the too late smart. She's gone now of course and I'm a few (ok, many) years older and now that I have some frame of reference to life, I have many questions I'd love answers to. But now there are limited resources for those answers.

In 2003 I traveled with my mother, back to Latvia, the country of her birth. It's a small country on the Baltic sea, sandwiched between Lithuania and Estonia, that has seen more than it's share of turbulent history. Consistent occupation by any number of big tough bully countries and only as recently as 1991 have they enjoyed some independence.

All that to say, I was shocked by the feelings I had walking in places where my ancestors, whom I'd never met, had once walked and lived. I'm in no way a superstitious person, but I can not deny the frisson of something...not excitement exactly....more like recognition, that I felt on several different occasions of being exactly where my grandparents and great grandparents had once been. On their streets....at the grave site of my great grandfather....standing in front of the house in this layout. This is the house my mom's family lived in before she was born. I could never have imagined or envisioned this place, but in spite of that, it is undeniably a part of me.

I may not be able to ask my Grandma any of the questions I have now, but when I feel this connection to her past, it is enough.

You've seen this layout already, but this post also appears today on the All About Me Challenge Blog and I wanted to reprise the thoughts here as well.

Thanks for visiting!!