Perhaps

She sat in the barn looking out over the farm. What would she be when she grew up? Would she be a mommy some day? Would she be an actress, a writer, a poet? She sat in the barn and wondered.

I don't share much of my past in this blog. Those stories and that history is saved for my Neff Road blog. Yet I'm not sure I can separate the two for both are me, both come from the heart of girl raised on a farm in rural Ohio.

We live in a time of concern about our world, the environment, of our plants and animals. I forget many times that not everyone had the rich growing up that I was privileged to experience. Not every child has a parent or grandparent to help them look beneath the leaves for a ginger flower or someone to sit with them watching the day time sky with the variety of birds or the evening sky full of stars. Not every child held a fishing pole and sat by a pond for hours on end learning patience and observance. Not every child plucked a chicken or gathered an egg or saw a baby lamb born. Not every child grew up on mush and coffee soup. Not every child rode in the back of a wagon on a hayride or sat upon a tobacco planter.  Not every child.

The writer in me was blessed to have such a rich history. The child in me was blessed to have experienced all that was the farm.

We are all different parents and grandparents with varied histories. With each of those histories, we have gifts, gifts to pass on, gifts to encourage. My girls will never pluck a chicken. I could only hope they might gather eggs from a nest, but it won't happen. But my girls will have a grandparent with whom to look beneath the leaves and into the sky, a grandparent who will observe and learn, a grandparent who will take a rich history and teach from it.

The little girl sat in the door of the haymow wondering what she would be when she grew up. Perhaps she would be a writer.