Senwes Scenario June / July 2016 | Page 49

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 Kontak Ronin vandag en vind uit hoe maklik dit is om U boerdery ´n reuse hupstoot te gee. Ons verskaf tegnologie wat getoets is en gebruik word deur Suid-Afrikaanse boere! www.roninpfs.com // +27 (0) 11 608 3666