06/06/2024
Dear,
Happy Summer! My husband, Gordon, and I started the summer with a bucket list cruise to Portugal, Spain, and France. The trip was wonderful, the food delightful and the vino made everything even better. However, there was one huge problem: Homesickness.
Homesickness is in my DNA. I inherited it from my mother, Maxine. Maxine went to college in Chickasaw, Oklahoma, 38 miles from her hometown of Duncan, Oklahoma. After less than a month a college, Maxine was so overcome with homesickness her daddy had to bring her home.
Our trip was 16 days, and after 7 days I was overwhelmed with a horrible case of homesickness. I was constantly experiencing flash back to another wicked case of homesickness I had as a seven-year-old little girl a Girl Scout Camp in Mytre Peak, Texas. Just like being at camp there was no way my Daddy, Willie B. Good, could rescue me and bring me home.
Fortunately, on the cruise, thanks to an unlimited supply of wine and chocolate, my symptoms were eased enough for me to avoid jumping ship. And, the amazing sights we witnessed were worth any suffering I had to endure. On the last day of our trip, we were lucky enough to go to Normandy, France just before the 80th Anniversary of D-day is commemorated on June 6, 2024.
Both my husband’s, father, and my father served in WWII. Gordon’s father was a Captain in the Navy and would have been at D-day but for his ship being out of commission for repairs. Willie B. Good was in the engineering division of the Army helping get the pipelines up and running in Italy.
Gordon and I were unprepared for how emotional and moving seeing the landing sights and strolling through the memorial grounds would be. Nine thousand soldiers died in the D-day invasion and their graves were marked with granite crosses pointed in the direction of the USA, as if the they were marching home.
A crowd of about 250 people gathered at the center of the memorial. They were looking for someone to read a prayer and I gladly volunteered Gordon. Complete strangers, for all over the world and for various religions and beliefs bowed in prayer. There was not a dry eye after Gordon read the prayer below.
"Today, we are assembled together to celebrate the memory of the thousands of heroes who gave their life so Freedom would prevail. These men and women sacrificed themselves so we could be here together, on this day. We should always remember, in peaceful moments as well as challenging times, that united with faith and an unstoppable will, mankind can find the light in its darker times. Their legacy is the light, which shall never disappear as long as we believe in the common values of our democracies, and as long as we fight to keep it alive. It may be difficult sometimes. But difficult is not impossible, as many demonstrated on this land, 80 years ago. God bless the heroes from the past, from the present and the future. God Bless their mothers and fathers, their wives, husbands and children. God bless Freedom, and God Bless the United States of America."(Author unknown.)
Without a doubt we are in trying times and the issues and divisiveness in this country seems insurmountable, but I have no doubt we will rise from this too. As we remember D-Day, my prayer is that you will think of the over 9000 men and woman that overcame the insurmountable on D-day so you could live in the land of the free.
God bless you and God bless the United States of America.
