3 Items...

Imagine the following:

A major catastrophe has almost completely devastated the infrastructure of your country. The emergency government has decided that the surviving citizens will be best served if they are evacuated to other countries willing to take refugees. You and your immediate family are among the survivors of this catastrophic event. However, you have absolutely no input into the final destination or in any other evacuation details. You are told that your host country’s culture is completely different from your own, and that you might have to stay there permanently. You are further told that, in addition to one change of clothes, you can only take 3 small items with you. You decide to take three items that you hold dear and that represent your family culture.

Tonight as my family sat at the dinner table, I asked them to help me with this assignment.  It had occurred to me that if we were only able to pick 3 things that represented our family culture then our family needed to make the decisions together.  After a lot of scratching of our heads and realizing that really as long as we were safe and together there were not many THINGS we felt we would have to have.  We finally decided on the following 3 items.

1) A box of photos so we could remember and share stories and lessons learned form our  family and friends who contributed to the creation of our family culture.  They would be a historical reference as well as a source of inspiration.

2) Our recipe notebook that is filled with all the recipes of the foods we love to share together.  Sharing meals is a major component of our family culture.  We love to cook together and eat together.  We share the highs of our day and the lows of our day.  We play word games and we sometimes just share silence.  Having the recipes, even if we could not find the proper ingredients would be a source of comfort and hope.  It would also be a piece of our culture that could be added on to as we added to our experiences in our new home.

3) Finally, we would bring our daughter's doll.  The doll has traveled with us, been sick with us, celebrated with us and is really part of our family.  The doll would also be a source of memories and something our daughter would have as a reminder of where she came from as she created her family culture when she was grown. 

If we were told that in the end we were only really able to take one item it would have to be the photo box because it would be filled with the most meaning and representation of who we are, where we came from so we could move forward in our new life.

Over the years I have watched the news and seen horrific events that have forced people to leave their homes and abandon what they know just to survive.  In those circumstances any source of comfort from the past must be a gift.  For me I must say that having my family intact would be my greatest source of comfort.  From my perspective, sitting at my computer in the safety of my home, it is what we are as a family that represents our culture more then any small item we have. ... but I have never been a refugee in a new country.... and I can not even imagine how that might feel.