History..

Hanging out in Atlanta with my mother over the weekend, I started to have a grandmother memory. I thought about my father's mother, mostly because my mother and I walked the streets near so many MLK monuments and also when I got home to Cali, my eyes glanced at something my grandmother cherished a great deal. This memory was sort of like a quick flashback of my grandmother, Senora. I remembered when she told me the story of how she was in Dallas when Kennedy was assasinated. She said she was coming out of a nearby store with a friend of hers and as soon as they saw people scattering and voices shouting the president was killed, she and her girlfriend got out of Dallas as quickly as they could. She said to me as she recalled this memory "they killed that boy so I went home and got my bible." The same sort of thing happened when MLK was killed. She said she went into the room, got her bible and prayed. Then many years later as she lay in bed unable to move her own body and unable to really communicate very well, I sat in her bedroom with her watching a news report about JFK Jr. when he died in the plane crash. They showed his face with his birth and death years at the bottom of the screen. Grandma asked "he dead?" I answered yes and noticed as she turned her head in the direction of that same old bible, unable to reach for it, she just gazed at it for a moment and then she closed her eyes... This very same bible that she picked up seemingly whenever something tragic occured as I mentioned is with me now. And as I walked the streets of Atlanta over the weekend with my mother, I couldn't help but think about not only my grandmother, but also about history itself especially as it relates to the recent events of this country seen through the eyes of someone whose lived enough years to experience it all in their own way; me... I got a little bit of history under my belt now but it sure is a blessing to see, hear and talk with someone whose seen and even experienced more than me... To be around history is a powerful thing; living or in spirit...

*note to my ATL friends* ==smile== I'll be back soon.. I just had to do this very special trip for my mother and to show her Atlanta for the first time. It was a very special time, we had a blast and I was proud to show her an important recent accomplishment of mine... *