“I was four years old when my father placed all our worldly goods into a covered wagon and we headed out from Minnesota to North Dakota.” This was my great grandmother’s story handed down to me through the women in my family. It resonated with my eleven-year-old self as we loaded everything we owned into a metal shipping container bound for Swaziland, Africa, the day my mother informed me we’d be moving to this tiny little kingdom floating in the space between Mozambique and South Africa.
All we knew about our future home were the two paragraphs we found in our red hardbound World Book Encyclopedia. The encyclopedia went into the container. I remember because I’d spent many quiet days reading them cover-to-cover in the lonely days that crept into every adventure. The stories of my parents’ childhood and the family on the other side of the ocean helped me place myself on the map of the hard working, adventurous women in my life who’d ventured into the unknown with little more than perseverance and prayer.
Head on over to Fathom Magazine for the rest of the story. . .
This month Fathom is looking at stories this month in their latest issue, how we share them, tell them, receive them. It’s an honor to participate in this conversation. As I’ve crossed through trauma, travel and the journey of faith, stories have been a universal language, the place where heart, mind and spirit intersect.
Thank you to the Fathom Magazine crew for their focus on this powerful element of human expression.
