Looking forward to going back,

Every spring I think of the time spent in a little town in Mississippi called Duck Hill.


When I was a child my family would take the pilgrimage known as "Memorial Day", which was always the first Sunday after the third Thursday after Easter if Easter was in late April. This timing practice was always debated from year to year and before all was said and done, it usually hinged on when the "matriarch" of the family had her say...............don't ask, it's a "Missippy" thang.





I have vague as well as vivid memories of these visits to Shiloh Baptist church, one memory was so strong and so comforting that decades later as I sat at my mother's graveside burial I began to hear the buzzing sound above my head. Looking up I was instantly transported a hundred miles south and forty years earlier to a wooden pew in a one room church in the warmth of a similarly beautiful June morning. Surrounded by voices singing of unity and love, I was once again watching wasps that had come in out of the sun to dance between the wooden rafters.





Here is a picture of a great aunt, who was younger sister to my grandmother. This was taken last year in the cemetery of the old church as a dedication service was being made to "their" grandfather, who was in the civil war. There would be thirteen children in her family before she was grown. They are all still living in our hearts and minds, and she will jokingly agree she just happens to be "the only one left above ground".





I can't wait to see and be with the rest of the clan........it's heaven looking forward to going back.