[StBernard] no safe place

[Westley Annis]

	My mom, as
	have others, have told me to come in out of the  rain and lightning

Well, maybe it is my history,  my mom too thinks me insane for having moved
away from the 'old country' , quaint little place where people didn't lock
their doors, rolled up the sidewalks at night, and leave their purses on
their chairs when going to the bathroom, to move into a parish 5000 miles
away with snakes in my garden and having to lock my car doors while driving
to work.
Well, then again my mom did not tell me to come out of the rain but told me
that family is most important and disaster happen, we pick up the pieces if
they are there and start over.
Well, maybe it is history, as my mom lost absolutely everything when she was
my daughter's age, and her mom was younger than me, not to a storm or flood
but to people fighting and hating, being kicked out of the country they
inhabited as the country suddenly was no longer part of their home country;
feeling lucky they got kicked out with the clothes on their backs as the
alternative was being gunned down; watching a 'foreign' little girl using
her toys already as she departed like cattle on a train to a concentration
camp; watching the horrors of living through those camps, seeing others
killed, trying to find relatives, never knowing when one will be humiliated
naked for lice inspection, raped, killed, or sent elsewhere; knowing never
to be able to even come back and look at what was left behind as another
nation took it, renamed it, and obliterated every trace of the previous
owner's life; not knowing if dad is alive or dead of if they ever find him
again; keeping the faith nevertheless.
They were lucky, found dad who was imprisoned luckily by the British and not
the Russians, found family, traveled without cell phones without cars
without food and found each other without computers and cell phones, and
rebuild their life from the rubble of another strange place, where they
found even love, my dad. Yes, my grandparents and mom were refugees from a
country now no longer Germany. They lived for many years, not only two
months or one year, but many years, worse than I ever experience from
Katrina. They made out ok in the end and provided us kids with a great
childhood in a world that is never safe. But they made the best and let God
guide them and help them, and they had guts and determination. 
Maybe it is history of my family that instills this, but I am not a warrior.
In fact, we are the lucky ones.
Thanks for letting this come out, but my family history inspires myself and
humbles me at the same time. I am not having it so bad. I love my  home
country in spite of its rotten history affecting so many, I also love this
country and often speak better of it than some citizens I know. I am a St
Bernardian by choice and proud of it. 
Sorry it got so long, and thanks for being St Bernardians as well. This
whole Katrina event puts things into quite a perspective.
So I pick up the pieces and be glad to have mud to rake through as she had
none.
I have my family although rumors still float that hubby was dead on the
roof. It was NOT him. I have the chance to come back and rebuild, as my
grandparents did not but did it elsewhere on rubble. I count myself as being
blessed.
 
Gaby