Tag Archives: freedom

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Juneteenth and Father’s Day

Juneteenth and Father’s Day, I am celebrating and thinking of both, and missing my father and my grandfathers. Yesterday was a delayed memorial for my ex mother-in-law. I loved her and we stayed in touch and I continued to visit her and also loved her second husband. He was another grandfather to my children. We had six grandparents, with my ex’s parents divorcing a year after he and I married. Now we have one living. My paternal aunts and uncle have stepped in as the parents and grandparents that are missing for me and my children.

The pressman is my paternal grandfather Kenyon Charles Ottaway. Or Charles Kenyon? Now I need to ask my Aunts. I do not know what year that was taken. He was head pressman in Knoxville Tennessee in the early 1960s. He went by Ken. My Aunt Pat adds that he was nicknamed “Inky” and that the above photograph was taken in Bridgeport, CT. On the back it says ’45, so our guess is 1945.

My father, me, and my sister Chris.

The second photograph is my father, Malcolm Kenyon Ottaway, and me and my sister. My father went by Mac.

Jubilee for freedom and for both father’s day and Juneteenth. I miss my parents and my grandparents, love to all of them. Hooray for Sweet Honey in the Rock, too.

Sending love and peace.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: jubilee.

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saved

when your parents die
you will find what they saved

you will find things in the house
that you do not know why they saved

you may find linens carefully folded
and papers from the past

the linens embroidered by ancestors
but you cannot ask which ones

photographs of people you don’t know
and which are not labeled

a reference to a ring that your great aunt had
but she has been dead since 1986

when you go to your parents’ house
ask them what they have saved

ask them why it has been saved

ask them now
because when they are gone
it is too late

to ask about what they saved

________________________

There are also families estranged, where they have cut ties or emigrated or escaped abuse, and have reason not to save anything or speak about it.

We want freedom but we want love too. For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: freedom.

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freedom

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt #76: freedom.

Immigrant children separated from parents and placed in “camps”. This is concentration camp, jail. They have not been returned to their parents: https://www.npr.org/2018/06/19/621065383/what-we-know-family-separation-and-zero-tolerance-at-the-border. This is a horror committed by my country. Return the children to their parents.

The deer were in the empty lot across the street from my clinic yesterday. Both fawns went to check in with their parent when I got out of the car with my camera. Imagine the terror of a small child whose parents have been taken away.