F UT UR E F O CUS
Those children who were privileged to grow up
on the farm made incredible memories and even
though time and tide have taken many of them
away to big city life, without fail, we saw the longing for those days of yesteryear, for the ‘heimwee’
sat on their lips and on the edges of their eyelids.
Occasionally you’d spot one of the oldies taking a
walk down the road and past the sheds; or down
the garden to the little church with its graveyard
full of history, and we’d leave them to have the
quiet moment...
“Preserve your memories, keep them
well, what you forget you can never
retell.” – Louisa May Alcott
•••
memories. We don’t all have
huge monuments erected with
our names on them, but we will
each leave footprints on the memories of people whose lives we touch. It
is up to each one of us to choose whether
that will be a lasting legacy or one quickly
forgotten. When we are filled with worries, we
frantically pursue a race for daily survival. Our
minds are so busy with survival planning that we have
no time to think of others. In so doing, we miss out on a
very critical simple truth about life: Relationships matter
more than money. When we lift others, we lift ourselves!
Winston Churchill aptly said: We make a living by what
we get but we make a life by what we give!
Time spent with the older generation listening to
legends of yesteryear has reminded us to appreciate what we have. I am so grateful that we had
the opportunity for our children to meet distant
cousins who they would never otherwise know young men and women who must make a life for
themselves in the city, even while wishing they
could be lucky enough to live and work on the
farm... Not the drought and our tales of worry;
nor the atmosphere of insecurity was off-putting.
Nothing is worse than what they deal with in the
urban jungle anyway!
Aristotle said, “Educating the mind
without educating the heart is no
education at all.”
But more than that, it has made us stop and think
about legacies. What legacies are we leaving for
our children and their children? Are we building
relationships which will enrich them and make
them feel secure and loved? Are we making happy
memories with them so that in years to come
they will remember us and carry our names on
their lips to children yet unborn? Are we passing
on our culture and traditions? What we leave
behind is so much more than that which can be
measured in monetary value. Besides our worldly
assets we leave behind values, beliefs, plans and
SENWES Scenario • JUN/JUL 2016
47
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