Roots
Picture courtesy of the late and dearly missed Joe Leahy My Mom used to pay us a dime for each dandelion we kids could uproot in our yard. She explained that you have to follow the root deep into the soil to get every little bit out, or else they sprout again. More often than not, the stubborn roots stretched further into the soil than I could dig, so I ripped out all I could and tried to fulfill Mom's directions by chopping at the remaining strands of root clinging to the depths of the soil. When roots are deep enough, they have to break when it comes time to dig them out. There's no way to remove the plant from its roots AND keep it whole. That's how I feel now. I just arrived in Provo from what may be my last trip to my roots, Valdez, for quite some time. I took advantage of all the time I had on the plane ride back to the "Lower 48", as we semi-affectionately call it, to write my feelings. Here are a few snippets. A lot of them are about family stuff