Childhood Images


With parents who are wise, hardship never destroys a child but it can create a resilient and confident adult.  We make the poor choices - when we give our children everything but deny the life skills and experience  which they really need to survive.

I remember the "hunt" for the iguana when I was three years old.  Taken to the edge of the jungle, my adopted Mexican "Abuelito Antonio" pointed out the reptile sleeping on a rock.  One trigger pull, and we had our lunch.  My mother placed plastic around the tail so that I would not have to touch it. Yes,  I remember this event.  It is one of a handful of memories from that age.

Second image, our kitchen, when I was age twelve.  Inside, a table and a kerosene stove.  To the left of it, a tar paper shack with a set of bunk beds and a cot for the five children.  My youngest sibling, was apparently conceived in the back of the station wagon.  She made a surprising appearance when I was nearly fourteen years old.



I was shocked, when a girlfriend in the U.S. informed me that we were "poor".  One blouse, a skirt, a jumper and one dress at age fifteen. One pair of tennis shoes.  But my parents waved good-bye as I loaded up with a large group of teens and young adults to travel from Oaxaca, through Guatemala, and on to Belize for a Christian tent revival.  Age fifteen. Trusted by my parents, traveling through jungle roads at night, ending up snorkeling off an island near Belize.  God!  I  knew  how lucky I was to be born into such a family!

We were offered unique experiences by an ethnographer father and a whimsical mother who preferred poetry to reading.  

My childhood looked like this: cultural immersion with the nine indigenous tribes of Oaxaca who lived along the mountains of the Sierra Madre.  I regret that my sons did not experience the same.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0FYHCrSjb8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJOyV8JsI_o


Today, as I grieve the loss of my friend, I remember my most magnificent father - who is the primary reason for who I am today.

 

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