after many miles and months of travel I have come to find myself back in the city of my birth; Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. What an incredibly beautiful city, one that is chalk full of history, culture and at this present moment autumn at its finest. Each time I am "home" I am reminded of the legacy my family has!
shortly after arriving I found myself nestled beside my Nan enthralled by the tales of her youth, the many tales, that continuously captivate me...rest assured there is no need to wonder any longer where I get my great love of stories and story telling from :)
one of Nan's (and my) favourite stories to tell, especially after my Gramps died, is how she came to be Mrs. Lorne White. She often begins this story with telling me of how there was "the most gorgeous black couple" she had ever seen in her life on her University campus...not only were they the "most gorgeous" but they also happened to be the only blacks at Acadia University, the school they attended in the valley of Nova Scotia. Nan goes on to tell me of the time when the young lady's parents arrived on the scene from the Caribbean for the graduation of their young daughter. It was during this visit that the young man (my grandfather) asked her father for his daughter's hand in marriage. Sadly (for the young lady) the story comes to an abrupt end when her father responds to Gramps with, "there is no way I'm gonna let a white boy marry my daughter..." and in the words of Nan, "...that was the end of that..." (the more times I hear this story the more I realise how grateful I am that this stunning couple did not ever make it to the altar!! I am amazed to think that this father's judgement of my Gramps made the way for me to be born, what power we have in our words! Think about it, that one sentence altered history forever.)
when I reflect on this story it isn't the statement of the father that provokes me, but what Nan confronted me with afterward. She asked me, "what is more important the colour or the person?" To her it is an incredulous thought that anyone would ever even look to the colour of a person's skin over who they actually are as a person!!
this is a question that has me here sitting in my grandparents home cogitating her very thought...I can't help but think of the many places I have just journeyed to and from in the past few months, places where the people's outer appearance looks SO different from mine. Places where I experienced first hand that the colour of your skin really opens and closes doors for you - if my skin were darker I would have been able to literally walk through borders unnoticed in Africa, but due to the pure white hue that is my skin I am subjected to long immigration lines, visas and interrogations!
For many of us in this day and age living in the West Nan's q seems like a silly question to even park on, it seems that it shouldn't even be a reality to us. BUT it is a reality to SO many people!!
the more I am blessed to travel the more I see how people are really are treated so differently. Why is this? Why is it that people are treated because of how they look, because of how they dress or don't dress, how they act or don't act. I think we need to be truly honest and stop to take a look in our hearts and ask ourselves what do we really think IS more important - the colour of a person's skin or the person them self??!
mulling over this I can't not think about my grandparents;
I think of my Nan, so bold and courageous in her youth, going against her family and taking a chance on love because she understood the timeless truth that - it does not matter the outside of a man, but its what's on the inside that counts!
Or my Gramps, who taught us to be proud of where we came from, proud of our rich heritage, our family, as he would share that each struggle he overcame helped develop him in to the man of God that we all loved and admired so much and knew him to be!
in conclusion of all of this, I find myself returning to Genesis, it is here that I am reminded that we are each created in God's image, each alike, in God's own image. Different yes, but equal still. For this truth I am so thankful. I think of each person I have met over the past four months specifically, but years of my life really, and how many look nothing like me but how so many have impacted my life in ways that have marked me forever. If I was a person that allowed colour to be more important than the person inside I wonder how many blessings and relationships I would have missed out on. If this were true of me I may not have been open to acknowledging that someone who looks so different from me has anything to offer me in the way of better enhancing, changing or developing my character/life. I am so grateful for the family heritage I grew up in, understanding the simple timeless truth that the person is ALWAYS so much more important than their outer appearance.
wicklow, ireland
