Miss Latvia

I am sitting at Miss Latvia's feet when I ask her to tell me of her youth. (For her privacy, I'll call her Miss Latvia, because Latvia is where she was born, in the 1920's) She replies by telling me stories of her European past, speaking in a Russian-German accent, which she says she has tried for 60 years to get rid of. I imagine black-and-white photographs of her family in the Displaced Persons Camps (D.P.C.), sleeping on thin mattresses inside mere cinder-block walls. These are some of the things she dictates to me, so that her story might be remembered. Though she does not describe it in very much detail, her life is a unique picture all its own. The beginning is like a sad flip-book. However, Miss Latvia speaks of hardship without grumbling. She is even thankful for the life that she led in the German D.P.C. from 1946 to 1949, just after WWII.

"We never complained," she says. "For there was never anything complain about. Sure, the canned split-pea soup was like Green Scandal, and the closest thing to sugar or cake that we ever got was a loaf of bread... But we were lucky."

OK! I'm counting my blessings!!!

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My favorite part of her dictation was how she and her husband (married for 60 years) stayed committed to each other through so much...

"It is better that man and wife start out poor," she says, "with nothing but each other and the bare basics to live on... We started in this new country, with no money, no friends, no big house, and no English. And that is good. For it forced us to rely only on one another. Now days it is so easy to back out of relationships and marriage. Today is a day of having everything that you need or want; there are always other options. But it is better if there are no other options for two young people... "

Wow. I am so privileged to glean from her wisdom!

On that note, I shall leave you to contemplate. { you know.... Selah.} If I keep going on about her story, I fear I'll never stop. But I will say that I am very very thankful that I was able to write down Miss Latvia's dictation of her life. It was so cool!

and let us not forget Jerusalem! 

Rahel

Miss Latvia and me... April 2012

Wedding stuff... No guys alloud!

Just wanted to post some of my inspiration photo's with wedding planning. Enjoy!