Memories of a summer vacation.

It was the last summer we had together before we decided to adopted our first child. The year was 1996 a "back Easter" we called it. For I had had a dream to see firefly's. Every time I would listen to my husband tell me the tale of his youth, his first sighting of a firefly, his eyes would light up so that I might of wondered if it had captured the very essence of this elusive insect.
Being a full time wife and homemaker I spent several weeks planning every days route and the destinations. I had heard about for over fifteen years. We had never really had a honeymoon and this was our grand adventure. The years we we had together had been wrought with hard trails of the medical nature. So now it was our time. Bed and breakfasts, The Shenandoah River, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington D. C.. Two weeks together to rest and restore a sense of ease. The stress of the years had taken a great toll on us and we were ready to be refreshed and to have fun together.
I also a desire to see the land of my mothers youth and to try to come to understand the stories of her youth and the people she had come from. My mother was a child of a mistress Cherokee woman and a brutal white land owner, my grandfather. We decided to explore Tennessee first. It was an amazing thing to find that my grandfather was a very well known man. His was the largest of all the head stones at the tiny church on the side of the road. That day held the opportunity I never knew or dreamed would ever happen. When I asked someone at that little church about the man, my grandfather, I learned and amazing story. This man of my mothers youth who was so evil as to even murder my mothers mother in front of her when she was only a little four year old child. Found a faith, in Jesus Christ, later in his life. He gave away many lands to many people who he had oppressed. He made amends to that little community. He never made amends to my mother for she had vanished.
Then that man told me an amazing fact about my grandfather, his daughter and her children lived on the top of the mountain to this very day.
I had been told as a child that my half mothers sister died when she was a girl. The history my mother had told me was that my mothers step mom beat my mom and favored her own child.

I pulled up that driveway to my Aunt ( I never knew existed) as she stepped out into her drive I introduced myself. She said to me " I know who you are, I have been waiting for you, I knew Marie had eight children and I had hoped someday that they would find me." I an that eighth child. We sat in her living room as if in a dream. All the relatives were called and one by one came they an Uncle (who looked just like Robert E Lee), Cousins( two very poor boys in adolescence and a wifes who was the spitting image of a sister- in-law . It was a blur and I was so full of questions and I told many (but not them everything I knew) things carefully. During that visit I learned that the old ways die hard they raised fighting roosters, and the bigotry and racism frightened me away. I held in hand the transcripts of the 1929 court hearing when Grandpa tried to get my mother back from servitude (she was later to be sold as a White/Cherokee slave to a 39 yr old man who had a 19mn baby) she was only 14 yrs old. He failed for she had no safety with him there either. these documents were given to me and I was shown photos that made it all so real.

I drove away and have not looked back it feels so unsafe. Sad to think I just let them all slip away like that but it was too overwhelming to understand or to risk after all the years it took to recover from all the abuse and all the white supremacist wounds. The truth came clear that sin will always be found out. I had visited a fantasy land where it had become a reality. I was not to return to it once I left it. It did all exist though. All the stories my mother told me. All the horrors that others told me never happened so that they could keep safe in the denile of their minds

We moved on then to our time on the Shenandoah River with the fireflies so thick that God had lit the lantern. We walked and talked and I was healed by those magnificent little creatures. It was all a dream and by the end of our trip days and many wonderful experiences later, it was as if I had just dreamed the part about my people. Those people who so long ago my mother removed me from. Maybe she tried to kept me safe best she knew how. For the things that KKK do to non white children are an abomination. I have known those things first hand in my youth because she was as a moth to flame and could not escape the grasp of fear and brain washing. It is real and I am now far removed from it.

I am safe with the glow of the fireflies in my husbands eyes. The memories of the healing light flushing out all the doubt of the horrors I had remembered during my years in recovery. I remember how all he wanted was to show me those luminescent orbs. I was illuminated by the reality that was always denied by those who tried to hide the truth for all the varied reasons. Then that was given a greater illumination through the beauty of a firefly.
That was a vacation of a life time.
I understand a grandfathers regret and I think that some how he prayed in his repentance, I have watched several of his descendants come to know the love of God. I think we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses. I was vindicated in the exposure of the truth.

"Dreams do come true fireflies from me to you"