Thurs, Jul. 15
... Go now, one more time
Sometimes I wonder about the rate at which we grow up nowadays.
Today, we went to H�rnet, the farm that my Great-Grandmother Alida was born and raised on, near Kisa, Sweden. Interesting to see the house that she lived in, and to think about the number of people that have been born, lived, and died within its walls in the several centuries that it's been around.
I've always known, but it's never really sunk in, that Alida left home to sail to the US when she was 16 years old, and she never returned.
First of all, 16? When I was 16, I was worried about first kisses, college applications, high school boyfriends, getting my drivers license, spending as much time as possible with my friends, figuring out what I wanted to do with my life, avoiding housework and chores, going to youth group, learning to be the best Christian I could be, and figuring out where all these passions and loves in my life fit together.
I was certainly not ready to embark on a new life, crossing the ocean to a country that my parents would never see, and never seeing them again. I wasn't ready to learn a new language by complete immersion, get a job, and navigate my way around a city--no, not just around a city, but halfway across the country to get to the city! I was just testing my wings, not ready to fly yet. Even now, I'm mostly independent, but there are ways in which I still rely on my parents. Society in general lets kids grow up faster. We get married later, stay in school longer, and don't have to face all the pressures of the "real world" until several years after our ancestors did.
Secondly, though, never returning? That's such a foreign concept in this day and age, when communication and travel are easier, less expensive, and more efficient than ever. I wonder if they ever imagined a day when they could write letters as many times a day as they wanted, chat online, use voice-chat technology to have conversations without even using the phone, or fly across the ocean in a few hours. Could they have imagined how commonplace travelling would become, and how many people would travel to several different continents, many more often than once--many even more than once each year?
It's totally a different world than it was then, and I don't think we understand the absolute sacrifices made for the sake of a better life. The sacrifices Alida's parents (my great-great-grandparents) made--sending 7 children across the Atlantic, never to see their grandchildren or children-in-law--and the sacrifices she made for the sake of her own life and her children's future.
Things have certainly changed a lot since then.
infinite || abyss
posted at 8:48 p.m.
