In that it contains things that are personal to me, my blog is sort of like a diary. Today I’m tearing a page out of another person’s diary, that of my brother Jan. He sent me this email a few days ago, from Africa, where he still lives, to America, where I now reside.
No big deal, right? I mean, an email happens virtually instantly, so all that’s happened is the world has been made a whole lot smaller. Wrong. Nothing makes the world smaller, nothing eliminates distance, and nothing replaces a touch.
Read my brother’s missive, and weep with me for what the entire world is losing. And what is it that the world is losing? Family.
Jan’s email message.
In dim memory sometime, years back, I penned these words…
To what avail? Time has passed.
The deed is done.
Yet I love you all still.
Jan.
~ Worlds Apart ~
We live with our children in separate cities
Apart from one another
In separate countries
On separate continents
In separate hemispheres
Our hot wet summers are your icy snowbound winters
Your hot humid summers are our cool winter days
Our children grow up not knowing one another
Yet we are family, one family spread far apart
How long do we endure our self-imposed separation?
And what becomes of the love we have for each other
From desolate days to lonely years spent in intercontinental isolation
The vastness of distance refuses to be overcome by brief sojourns
We cannot catch up with each other while we do not walk the same paths
Our children learn otherworldly pastimes and play games
But not with each other, and then not even the same games
I yearn for the times we shared
Together in the wild places of Africa
For the memories of childhood and youth
Of times on farms with brothers
On rivers with family and friends
Of boats and trucks and tents and tiger fish
Kudu and cotton and bushpigs and mealies
Where has it gone?
Will our children ever be together?
Do we just grow old and leave it too late?
Will we really be together then?
Wish I could look forward to that time, only I don’t know when
And where will our mother be then?
Will our babies know their granny then?
Wish it could be when, at least we were together
Did Africa really tear us apart?
Or did we only imagine it happened that way
While we do it by ourselves?
Hope it’s not too late now
Let’s turn back the clock to our future together
Will we come home then, when we need to be in Africa now?
