The Imaginary Front Porch

It was a moment of feeling speechless when several years ago I was going through a box that had, unknown to the rest of our family, been stored in our barn by my father. In the box was a leather pouch.  Inside the pouch, in nearly perfect condition, were letters from a relative on my father’s side who served in the Civil War. The soldier had written to his family of his adventures of war and of his hopes of coming home soon. The last letter in the small collection, which I expected to be a continuation of his story, was from another officer in the Army telling of the death of the young man. The letter deeply moved me and I think of it periodically. How my father came to have the letters and the beautiful leather pouch that had so wonderfully preserved them all these years I do not know.  We found it, along with many other letters he had saved, after his death. 

Driving up Peachtree today I happened to notice the stone memorial in remembrance of the Battle of Peachtree Creek kind of tucked under the trees in front of Piedmont Hospital.  For a minute my mind was like an Etch-a-Sketch, wiping out all of the modern world and trying to imagine the landscape and those who fought in that battle.  What was the landscape like without all of the buildings? Had many of the soldiers just written the same kind of letter home and were then putting their lives on the line after posting it, knowing their words would take days to reach their families?  What were their medical options in the Battle of Peachtree Creek if injured? I know they were options I don’t like to hear about, and how ironic it is that a hospital stands on that land.  How many hundreds or thousands of footsteps were taken that we can no  longer see the remnants of?  The prints are long since gone, but they matter to what we enjoy now. 

I felt a strong sense that their time, persistence, and sacrifice, whatever all the conditions that came just before and just after, somehow enabled me to enjoy this new place I now call home.  The small stone monument reminded me (and I do need these reminders) that those who came before us matter in thousands of different ways…not just in the war that had the visible acknowledgement today, but creators of all kinds, writers, inventors, musicians, doctors, teachers and on into an endless list.  Their footsteps paved the way for our footsteps.  It struck me that we layer one another’s footsteps over time. 

Who walked the land and lived the land where Trinity School now resides?  When we walk through Discovery Woods, who walked there 50, 100, 150 years in the past? Whose footsteps do we cover each day with our own and how did they help create the world we so enjoy?  What did they learn that influences what we now learn and experience? Can we even begin to imagine what footsteps will cover ours 150 years from now? What legacy will our footsteps leave?   

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 10th, 2008 at 10:11 pm and is filed under mulling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.