4th of July

Like most people, I enjoy celebrating holidays. Thanksgiving and July 4th tie for my favorites. Both days include times for being with family and friends, playing and talking, listening and cooking, eating and giving thanks.

Two life experiences a decade apart increased my love of Independence Day. In 1990 I started my own consulting business. For several years my supportive husband encouraged me to work for myself. I ignored him or raised my voice to him for a long time, because I was afraid I did not have what it would take to create and sustain a business. I was an English major, for Pete's sake! What did I know about entrepreneurship? When the Charlotte school superintendent eliminated the leadership training center where my creativity and facilitation skills could be happily applied, I had two options: work for another big bureaucracy or start a consulting firm. I started Leadership Dynamics on my birthday in June and by that first 4th of July, I was only two weeks into it, but I had a new appreciation for what our American freedom allows. I could just strike out and do whatever I wanted to do! And I was doing just that.

In 2000 I returned from a three week trip to Guinea, West Africa where I joined my son and his friend [now wife] who were creating a school for Sierra Leonean refugees in Guinea. Living in a small block building, eating Mabinty's delicious but very simple food cooked over a coal fire, walking dusty pot-holed roads, breathing polluted air from constant burning of plastics and garbage gave me another level of appreciation for our country's bounty and infrastructure. Later when our Guinean and Sierra Leonean friends visited, they would remark on things I took for granted like the security of our mail or the dependable trash pickup or the network of excellent roads. I am grateful for all that my taxes dollars support.

Today I celebrate another decade of freedom and opportunity. My new grandchildren enter a different world than the one I have known. One sons apply their values and graduate school educations to environmental issues in law or research science. I can travel, write, tend gardens and spend time with my husband and friends. On this 4th once again, I gather with the extended families of three couples I have known since before I was 21. The grandchildren of the children I babysat are in college. New babies will make their debut. Elders will walk a little slower. And when we sing, "God Bless America" before dinner on the wide green lawn beside the lake, every heart will swell, and my eyes will fill with grateful tears for the blessing of birth into this country.