I just got back from Haiti on Monday.
I realized this time, more than ever before, how much like "home" it always feels for me there. People know me, I mean really know me, and love me JUST because they watched me grow up.
Coming home to them is like coming back to family.
But a "different" kind of family.
This family does not all speak the same language, live in the same house, or even look alike. This family hails from places like Jellico, TN or Jacmel, Ayiti and more town and cities whose soil has never met my feet. This family loves me, not because we share blood or ancestry; their love comes from living this common, simple life together. It blooms from growing up together.
My heart calls them grandma, aunt, uncle, or cousin, while natural heritage tells a different story. And this story bleeds deep and true, almost beyond words, to the the place where the heart knows and comprehends....we were made to love each other in spite of it all. We were created to join together through links that defy human understanding.
With my love of photography as well as the written word deepening more and more with each passing day, I wanted to join with my friend Jen at I Believe in Love in sharing the colors of my world with the monthly color prompt. When I saw that this month's color(s) was(were) red, white, and blue, I wondered how I would SEE that BEFORE the 4th.
And then my lens captured this photograph......
At my home.
On Haitian soil.
.....and I knew....
This represents freedom and home and love to me.
In a way I did not expect as a child
Or even remember as an adult,
But just the way that He planned it.
So I breath in the flamboyant.
I soak in the Caribbean rays.
And my heart sings,
"Let freedom ring!"
Yes.
The freedom to be me.
The freedom in coming home.
