A Dedication

Eyes say more than all the words our tongues could twist free from our minds.

So much is said in her eyes—cornflower blue with gold accents near the pupil. Eyes, they say, are windows to the soul. If this is true, her soul can be as tranquil as a sea on a windless day, or as brooding as clouds congregating in storm. Yet, those wide eyes often belie that firm brow that overhangs them and speaks of a soul that loves, wants for protection, has a yearning to connect.

And, those eyes of hers can sparkle with the mischief of the Irish and harden with German resolve; emotions are never far from those cornflower blue eyes, which are her perfect canvas for the artistry of her thoughts.

She is the realized dream of hundreds of years of men and women from unforgiving climes, who forged lives out of the cold, jagged rock, whose hands bore calluses, whose own eyes stared into steely skies, emerald grasses, and stubbornly greeted each morning with which Life challenged them.

Her forebearers shouldered the burden of survival—all for the sake of a baby girl born one hot July day.

What brought those people together? God, Fate, purpose, love, lust, need? Whatever warmed those many cold nights, when clothes were shed, and skin heated skin—these people joined themselves, tangled bloodlines and genetics. Were their paths always meant to cross? Was this new millennium always meant to own a strong young woman with cornflower blue eyes and an inner fire ignited in one charged moment by ancients in distance lands?

She sings Irish ballads, devotes herself to acknowledging those relatives without whom she would not exist. In her truck, windows rolled down, winds whipping, she speeds down country roads proudly rambling to those Irish brogues lost in song.

She is a caretaker of her ancestors’ memory, scraping moss out of the grooves of their names and dates, raking back the tall grass—much like the people who woke up and sweated to feed their families, whose lives she protects from being forever forgotten, she battles with Nature to preserve the proof of their existence. Future generations owe a debt to this warrior preserver.

She is a caregiver to the ones she loves. She drives hours after a long day of work to comfort fears. She offers her strong hand to be clasped, held, clutched. She is never in doubt of her own sense of responsibility. When she tells you that she loves you, you get a sense of the bedrock truth beneath those words. No words are spoken that do not have deep meaning—those cornflower blue eyes reveal the earnestness and commitment.

What causes two disparate paths to cross? What draws two bloodlines mingled for thousands of years together suddenly? Perhaps it is a Topographer sketching our bloodlines like roads on a map—directing one path to merge into another path.

Our paths have finally crossed. I am thankful to those hundreds of people whose destiny she embodies, for without their desire and will, I would’ve been left to wander without a hand to hold or a heart to touch.