Thoughts Born from My Granddaughter’s Drawing Looking at my seven-year-old granddaughter Marley’s drawing of the smiling faces of her family, her mom, her dad, and her grandma and me and her brother and her and Whiskey and Baby, cats of long standing in the family, well, the portrait soothes me, like a breath of needed fresh air, as what she drew was her way of telling us all that she loves us deeply which like a whisper to me says that she and her generation are aware of what’s proper and decent and can weather the nonsense and lack of common sense that their nation is handing down to them and become wise to their need, with a little assistance from earlier generations, to undo the lies and propagandizing that have characterized humankind early in this century, and proceed to read as many of any books that might be banned as they can and come to understand why they were forbidden, and come to also comprehend why they should be at ease saying “gay” and not be spooked if a trans woman or man comes their way, and come to realize that in order for them to survive and create a loving society they will have to know their country’s racist and sexist and oppressive history as a back story to becoming aware of how things have come to be so, they can make the world a place wherein humanity is as beautiful as earth is physically. A world, where a little girl like my granddaughter, Marley, far in the future, will draw a portrait of her family with smiles on their faces like those she drew on the faces of our family, a testimony that love has withstood the passage of time. I thank Marley for planting such thoughts in my mind. Drawing by Marly Mandela Anderson
Granddad Ernie.
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