Remembrance

"Almost every ancient culture has this attachment to the land. 
What else is there without a place to call home? When I stood on 
that land, for the first time in my life I could actually feel my 
ancestors, my grandparents. They became real to me for the first 
time. They were as much a part of that land as the trees, the rocks,
the grasses. Their blood and sweat is mingled with the earth for 
thousands of years. How can one walk away from that without feeling
that a part of oneself is somehow left behind, somehow missing, 
like an amputated leg or arm that continues sending out sensations
to the brain, even though it's gone? Just the other day my mother 
said to me, "you know, when you are born in a country, there is a
part of you that always feels that that country is your true home."

                 Thea Halo, author of "Not Even My Name"