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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Jan’s email message.<\/p>\n
In dim memory sometime, years back, I penned these words…
\nTo what avail? Time has passed.
\nThe deed is done.
\nYet I love you all still.
\nJan.<\/p>\n
~ Worlds Apart ~<\/p>\n
We live with our children in separate cities
\nApart from one another
\nIn separate countries
\nOn separate continents
\nIn separate hemispheres
\nOur hot wet summers are your icy snowbound winters
\nYour hot humid summers are our cool winter days<\/p>\n
Our children grow up not knowing one another
\nYet we are family, one family spread far apart
\nHow long do we endure our self-imposed separation?
\nAnd what becomes of the love we have for each other
\nFrom desolate days to lonely years spent in intercontinental isolation
\nThe vastness of distance refuses to be overcome by brief sojourns
\nWe cannot catch up with each other while we do not walk the same paths
\nOur children learn otherworldly pastimes and play games
\nBut not with each other, and then not even the same games<\/p>\n
I yearn for the times we shared
\nTogether in the wild places of Africa
\nFor the memories of childhood and youth
\nOf times on farms with brothers
\nOn rivers with family and friends
\nOf boats and trucks and tents and tiger fish
\nKudu and cotton and bushpigs and mealies
\nWhere has it gone?
\nWill our children ever be together?
\nDo we just grow old and leave it too late?<\/p>\n
Will we really be together then?
\nWish I could look forward to that time, only I don\u2019t know when
\nAnd where will our mother be then?
\nWill our babies know their granny then?
\nWish it could be when, at least we were together
\nDid Africa really tear us apart?
\nOr did we only imagine it happened that way
\nWhile we do it by ourselves?
\nHope it\u2019s not too late now<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s turn back the clock to our future together<\/p>\n
Will we come home then, when we need to be in Africa now?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4328\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}