May he who come into our lives, enrich us.....

Let me introduce you to a gifted woman, named Maya Lin. A gifted Architect and artist, whom I have never personally met, but she has become a part of who I am........of who I have become.

In my early teens, I would often visit Washington, D.C., close to where my aunt and uncle live, and since they were busy, working people, they would allow me to explore the area, discover our nation's Capitol.

Growing up, of course, I had heard of Vietnam. I never watched war movies, but recalled having a simple understanding about the United States Government. We watched the news in the evenings at my house, afterall. Of course, as a child born in 1970, I grew up having only a vague recognition of war.

I recall visting the Smithsonians in my early teens, during one of those visits to D.C., and I walked along the Mall. I walked through the grass in my bare feet, watched the frisbees fly by, was curious about the man lying on the bench, barefoot, like me, not realizing that the difference between the two of us was that he did not own any shoes, he did not have a home. I fed breadcrumbs to the pigeons, and gazed at the busloads of children wearing identical colored t-shirts, holding hands, walking into the museums.

I remember the sun shining brightly down from the sky onto the reflecting pool.

...And, then...I happened upon it. It was a granite wall. I saw notes and flowers near it. I saw names, all of these names etched onto the wall. This wall seemed to go on forever. I saw men and women crying, kneeling, praying, touching, etching, looking off into the distance, I saw a man in a wheelchair, shifting to move to the side, so I could walk past him. He looked up at me and forced a smile. What could I say to him, I remember thinking. Was he in the war? What was his story?

I stopped and looked at the wall. Did I recognize any of the names? No. What was this? Vietnam? It was a war, I knew that. I looked down at the portion of the wall in which I was standing, and saw a sealed envelope, carefully placed by a name, with something scribbled on the front of it.

I reached over to the wall itself, to touch the granite. I felt the engraving of the names before me, but felt confused as to why I was touching the wall. It was an impulse that I could not control. Gazing at the envelope made me sad, and I began to weep.

This wall was so long, and the names were so numerous. These men died. They died for me, I realized. Only, it has taken me too many years to realize that they died for me to have the freedom to walk in front of that wall, to see them, to be who I am today.

I was born in Ohio, as was Maya Lin.

Today, I live in Montgomery, Alabama. She has again come into my life, although the experience of walking along the Vietnam Memorial Wall has forever been etched into my being.
I recently found myself barefoot, walking into the water on an extremely scorching Alabama summer afternoon.

On this day, of my 36th year of life, I took my sister and nephew to the Civil Rights Memorial in downtown Montgomery. I said to my nephew, "Remember how I told you that I went to law school? Well, the reason I went was because of this...Justice, Civil Rights, Freedom.": "Do you remember studying about Martin Luther King, Jr. in school?"

A striking black granite monument shouted out the words, "We will not be satisifed until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a might stream." The water rolls down that wall non-stop. See, I said, you can touch it. You can feel the words. You can hear the words, can't you?

We walked around the monument, this one, too designed by Maya Lin. My nephew knew about Rosa Parks. "She was here, in this very place where you are standing," I told him.

We spent precious time, walking around the monument, discussing why it was there. I explained to him about the fact that whites and blacks were not allowed to use the same bathrooms before, nor drink out of the same water fountains, nor sit next to each other on the bus.

We agreed that on some mornings, it was tough to get up in the morning and go to school, because we stayed up too late the night before watching t.v. But, then, we talked about education and freedom, and how fortunate we are to be able to go to school. We can go to school with people of all different races, from different places, from different homes.
We talked about becoming educated so we can made a positive contribution to the world.

Maya Lin will never quite understand what her contribution has been, but I hope that you will have the opportunity to touch the granite that she has used to transform lives.
Let us never forget.................