Best Days

Buried within a mundane very ordinary day, I found a gem. I had to be careful not to miss it because sometimes the shine of our gems get clouded out by the nothing-ness of the day.

A simple day.

A lasting treasure.

Saturday is a busy day for me. Since I work full-time outside of the home, Saturdays are my only errand/cleaning days. It wears me down sometimes and there are days I'd rather not be bothered but for the most part, I don't mind them. And if you come a little closer I'll share a secret with you --one that I certainly would not want my family to discover --- *whispers* I actually like housework; the cleaning, laundry, cooking, grocery shopping --all of it. I love serving my family. It's just who I am. But please keep that secret just between you and me, lest my family take me for granted!

So in this very ordinary day, I planned an early commissary trip. I wanted to be there when they opened at 9am so I can get the shopping done and get more work done at home. I asked the children who would go with me, "Not I", said Amanda. "Not I", said Zachary. "I will! I will go!", said Monica. After a slight grumbling of the time we'd depart the house, Monica agreed to go grocery shopping with me.

And that's it. It wasn't an exciting day. It was a work day. With my list and coupons in hand, I headed out to the commissary, Monica riding shot gun. We shopped, she pushed the cart and then with every item crossed off our list, we headed back home; unloading groceries, putting groceries away, cutting up and cleaning fruit, making room in the pantry, filling the snack drawer with treats ---just a very ordinary commissary trip.

The remainder of the day was chores. Chore day. Yes, there was a list; family room, living room, basement, bathrooms, bedrooms, kitchen --they all had their own list of things that needed attention and all the while, the washing machine ever running. This was no spectacular day. It wasn't even scrapbook worthy.

But behind the walls of work and chores I found a gem. I found Monica--just she and I. The two of us. We talked, we laughed, we sang songs, we drank coffee, we worked side-by-side and in that, I found the most treasured moments of just being together. Its these type of days I miss when she is away at school. I miss the ordinary things --I just miss her presence in the daily things we do.

Don't miss it. Don't miss the bonding and the relationship building that happens right there while you're cooking dinner, folding laundry or scrubbing a toilet. Though the chores might be the staring role in the feature, look closer there and find there is also a sub plot --another story going on and if you get too caught up in the work at hand, you might miss it. But if you're careful to look with your heart, there you will find a most glorious support role . . . .

and those are the best days.

Thank you Monica, I had the best day with you, today.

From Slavery to Graduation

It is very difficult for me to speak of these things because they are not my story to tell. I did not walk these steps; I did not fight this fight. So simply from the perspective of a by-stander, I try to grasp the significance of this day; Amanda’s graduation from college.

Slavery seems far reaching into our past. Even today the 60’s seem an era long gone where civil unrest was a common force in our American society. Men like Martin Luther King, Jr. paving the way for equality and freedom of choice of ALL people, regardless of their race. I’m afraid when things seem to far into our past we forget them, forget their significance, forget their meaning. We should not forget from where and which we come for the places we come from is the destiny of our future.

Today as Amanda accepts her degree from Miami University she does so as the first ever in her Newsome family line, embracing the spirit of “We have overcome”. For it was just one generation before her that her father attended segregated schools. He remembers integration and the unrest that ensued. Though the “colored children” were allowed to attend school with the white children, there still was a great divide of equality in education.

The generation before that, Amanda’s great-grand father, Zach Moore, was a share cropper, poor farmers that inherited a way of life birthed out of slavery. Basically, they were paid slaves but an honest day’s work didn’t necessarily earn you an honest day’s pay. This was a hard working generation of people embracing the freedom that was still new to them. Zach grew up a free man but with a taste of slavery in his mouth. Even as a grown man, he had a fear of “the white man” because he knew that freedom from slavery did not mean equality in a nation where there was still a vast separation in the equality of all men.

Zach’s father, Pompeii Moore, though not a slave himself he was born to slave parents who had been freed. Pompeii was no stranger to slavery as he watched his very own sister on the auction block one day. He witnessed first hand accounts of ownership of black people and I’m sure he vowed better for his own family one day.

Every generation a recovery from the last, the fight they took upon themselves, the sacrifices they made all paved the way for this day, Amanda’s college graduation. It was just one generation before her, her father that was able to even attain a high school education.

Amanda. 5^th generation from slavery.

Amanda. College graduate.

She represents them well.

She makes us proud.

Congratulations, Amanda on your graduation from Miami University.

Go now and teach.

Teach the future generations to read

and write

to grow

and learn

to live

and love

to know

and remember

the fight

the freedom

the place

from which you came

and to where you will go

with the blood, sweat, tears, love and blessings

of generations before you.