Upon noticing that today marks the 70th Anniversary of D-Day, a monumental day in world history, I was reminded of my visit to the beaches of Normandy, France in 1994 during their 50th Year celebration!
If I could go back in time, one thing I would change is how I preserve my pictures and memorabilia. Seriously! Look at the yellowing on this newspaper article from 20 years ago, (oh goodness, I'm getting old). No, the student pictured directly below is not me, but, if you scroll down I'm the second one from the right. Yep, me at fifteen, a freshman in High School. Young, naive, with the future ahead of me. Yet oblivious to the past that paved the way for me to get here. Now, as a homeschooling mom, I have been embracing history with a new passion and fervor. I may not have understood as I walked the beaches of Normandy the importance of the ending of such a traumatizing war but now I am learning to view it with a new and fresh perspective.
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| Fairport Student Exchange to France 1994 (I'm the second one from the right) |
Even though I may not have preserved the memories of my past the way I would have liked, there is always the power of the oral and written story. We need to rehearse with our children verbally, the memories we want passed down from generation to generation.We need to write down these events so they will not be forgotten. This has recently become more and more important to me as I continually learn about different events surrounding WWII that affected my family directly. Important and powerful events that should not be forgotten or lost so negative historical events are not forgotten. Or repeated. As I am learning about these events as they happened in my family's past I am realizing the importance of keeping these memories alive for generations to come. I hope to share more of these events with you at a later date, so stay tuned!
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| Normandy, France 1994 |
