Can You Feel It?

Reading the histories of my grandparents always leaves me in awe, but the stories that I love the best are the ones that go beyond the facts and share the feelings. I find strength in reading that these people whose blood runs in my veins didn't just stoically live day to day, but laughed, and cried, they felt pain in disappointments and joy in success, they had fears and searched for comfort with faith.

For example, my great grandma could make some seriously wonderful bread. This is a fact I have heard repeated several times from those who had a chance to feast on her sustenance, but it wasn't until I read this account that I really felt the sacrifice.

"We all remember her wonderful bread. It was freshly baked when we got home from school. When most of us were home she baked 15 loaves three times a week. And usually she made some scones or cinnamon rolls with some of the dough. Each batch took about thirty cups of flour and was mixed in a big hand turned bread mixer. I was like a big bucket with a crank on top and a dough kneader extending down into the bucket. The kneader and crank were attached through a cross-brace, which fit across the top of the bucket. When the family was in school Dad would turn the bread-mixer. It was a good workout for his muscles. On evening when the hungry tribe ate seven loaves of fresh bread for supper, mother quietly went to the next room and cried."

I have never taken a homemade loaf of bread for granted again....or my great grandma.


I know there are many of us who go quietly into the next room and cry; or on better days, we laugh out loud even though there is no one there to hear.

We feel and so we are....who were you this week?