roots of my heart

My 3^rd grade year was a monumental year for me.  It was the first year I lived in the U.S. (that I remember). It was the first year I was in a traditional classroom. It was the first time I lived near our extended family and got to know them better. In short, it was a year full of firsts.  And it was a year full of vivid, clear memories.

I found some pictures of my brother and me taken that year.  There is one of us playing in snow. We had scraped together enough snow to make a tiny snowman.  Another one shows us carving pumpkins with our grandparents.  I remember both of those events very clearly.

This picture is nothing extraordinary.  First day of school: Backpacks loaded with fresh school supplies, lunchbox packed, grinning with anticipation.  But then it hit me.  In this picture my brother and I are the exact age that my boys are right now.  And I wonder.

I wonder what events are taking place in their lives that will be monumental.  I wonder what moments will be burned into their lifelong memories. I wonder if there are things that seem like everyday occurrences that are life-changing. I wonder what events are having an impact. I just pray and I hope and I wonder.

Time is a slippery little bugger, isn’t it?  I am not sure where all the time has gone since the last post. Nor am I entirely certain what’s been filling so much time, but regardless, I’ve been MIA for awhile.

Well, I’m here now.

We loved playing in the creeks around our house in Kenya.  Some were closer than others.  One creek had a sandy bottom, shallow clear water, and lots of little alcoves to explore.  There were fresh water crabs to catch and leaves to race through the swift current.  We called this “The Fast River” because of the swift current.  We didn’t go to that creek all that often because it was a main thoroughfare and it also had great big boulders that made navigating the water rather tricky.

There was a great, lumbering, slow-current, mysteriously murky creek just down the hill.  We played there often because of its proximity to the house, in spite of the stench and gooey river bottom. We called it “The Slow River”.

"Workin' at the car wash, yea"

When visitors came to our house, however, we usually made our way to our favorite creek: “The Car-Wash Fast River.”  Admittedly not the catchiest title, but very aptly named.  It was further away from the house, so we didn’t go very often.  In my child’s mind, this was a separate creek from the other fast river, but it was likely just a different bend of the same one.

Washing a filthy car that had navigated the unpredictable, dusty, and bumpy back roads of Kenya was a great reason to go to “The Car-Wash Fast River”.