The circle of life spins around us, our world never ceasing to exist, yet we remain unaware until we are shaken from our slumber.
Rain pelted the pavement outside in cold sheets as we sat inside looking out at the gray blanket that covered our world. It had rained for days already, so what was one more. As I sat visiting with Jeannette and Ray, the little silver car pulled up quickly into the parking lot and two ladies hurriedly made their way into the visitor’s center out of the unwelcome atmosphere outside. I welcomed them and as I began checking them in for a self-guided tour, I heard the words, “Walldorf Germany” and knew we were going to have an interesting visit.
As we edged our way over to the map, I began to hear more familiar words; Posey county, southern Indiana and again, Walldorf. It was then I began to realize our visitors were more than people who happened off the street, more than the occasional curious passerby; these people had a vested interest in being here, like my own. Little did I know I was about to come face-to-face with someone that had made my journey to this point possible by something she had done nearly forty years earlier. Standing before me was the descendant of the Jourdan family, members related to my own, people that had survived some of the same ordeals and trials as my own family, yet like me, they had yet to hear the rest of the story.
The name Jourdan was more than a familiarity to me. It had been the name of one of the major characters in my book, taking the name of Albert Jourdan. Not only had these people been part of my families history in reality, but the name had also lived with me in the fictional world. Now, standing there in front of the map of the Cottien Alps, was another family member waiting to hear the rest of the story, the one we had never known or been told.
Like our lives in that quiet end-of-the-world place known as southern Indiana, we had lived in total obscurity to how and why we were even alive; survivors of a holocaust most will never know. Yet, we had been drawn to a place by the same power, the same faith to which we held dear. Now, far, far away from the Midwestern place, we were once again together, again drawn by that same presence, force and story. As I shared with them, I kept finding us being drawn from the history into the story of our own lives, each intertwined with the threads of finding out who and what we were. Each time, we kept pulling ourselves back to the story of the Trail, each time digressing into another thread of what and how we had learned of the truth.
Time passed without us knowing it. As we shared our story, we went to the beginning, the genealogy research that Barbara had started when she was a tender-aged thirteen years. I later found she lost her father when he passed from this world, far too young, at 46 years of age. I had to wonder later if that what drove her to research the family history at such a young age. Regardless, her high-school aged trip to Walldorf in the late seventies proved to be a valuable asset to the research that Jeanne Miller would later create, the same work from which my Aunt June would draw in order to create the genealogy gift she would later give me in 1995, the same one that would lead me to start my own journey to Walldorf Germany, totally unaware of what or who it was to be called, “Waldensian”. There on page 79 of Jeanne’s self-published, invaluable work read the words that gave credit to Barbara Norman (of the Jourdan family) and noting her valuable contribution to Jeanne’s own research. I had read this volume many times and never realized of the additional contributor, nor did I even realize there had been someone to Walldorf, from Posey county prior to Jeanne’s own trip. Yet, here she was, standing with me, showing me the exact pages, turning to them as if she knew exactly where they were to be found, which she did.
Looking back at the pictures we quickly snapped, I didn’t realize the tears of joy that had been shed. I knew myself, more than once, I had to fight back emotions as I shared with them the stories of the journey of our people and my own.
There are few rewards in one’s life greater than the fulfillment of finding others that have unknowing joined your cause, your mission or your journey. Who am I to not think that it may just have been as rewarding for her to realize that someone was so influenced by her work that they followed a calling from the history she too helped write. In other words, the beauty of the story can be seen from both sides of the river of life. The view from one shore to the other can be the same, the reflections in the water are of the same mountain peaks beyond, the only difference is the people we see on the opposite shore.
Again and again, we found confirmation in growing up not knowing, but yet sensing there was another influence in our lives greater than our own. We both sensed a gravity of faith so profound, so solid, so real that we honestly felt our elders had a belief grounded somewhere beyond what our communities around us would allow; yet we knew nothing. Growing up feeling these emotions yet unable to confirm them led us to want to go beyond the horizon, searching “what else”, “what for” and “why” far beyond those comfortable confines of our little towns.
I don’t know if we will ever meet again. I felt as if in one single morning I found a new family, yet ancient family, one that I could easily revisit and explore for a much longer time than today’s short visit allowed. Before she left, I asked her to search for a couple of key things; The village from where we came and why, yes, why we were never told that we were Waldensian. She replied the former would be possible, the latter she doubted. We both knew that for all we had learned, there was yet something we might never know.
God often prepares us and sends things into our lives for which we are not expecting; today was no exception. I don’t know if we will ever know the “why” but we can come closer to the where today. What does it all mean, if anything? I don’t know.
This journey began with the question as to, “Why?”
Sometimes, we have to succumb to the realization that there are some things that we may never fully understand with concrete proof; these are the things for which we have to have faith. In many instances, the statement, “Our Faith is All We Had,” is never more true. Today, faith in knowing from where we came, faith in who we are and faith is what brought us to this point is all that we know.
I yearn to return to Jakob, Arktos, Jean Paul, Marik, Kristoff and many others. The world in which they live is one that seems to grow closer to mine with each passing day. Their struggles are much greater than those I face, yet through them, I can see with eyes that would otherwise know nothing about how it would feel to suffer to that extent. I don’t say this in hopes to feel that level of pain, rather, I say this for the simple fact that this helps me to learn, to grow and to prepare for what may lie ahead.
Outside, the rain continues to fall in the darkness as night has fallen.
Each day I pray for strength, guidance and God’s will to work in our lives; today was no different.
Each day, the Lord shows me another way and another path I had never envisioned.
As a raindrop falls from the sky, it doesn’t know where it will land, yet it has no other recourse than to fall, pulled by the gravity of the earth, a force known only to God. When the drop of moisture finally impacts the surface below, its force alone is negligible, yet with time, many others falling upon the same location can become a factor so great, so mighty that mountains can literally be moved, oceans created and entire populations erased. The same can be said for our lives and how we choose to use them in this world. We can be that tiny droplet, landing harmlessly and evaporating before it has a chance to be followed by others, causing no change other than the tell-tale sign of moisture, or we can be an impact on something greater than ourselves, falling where those who have gone before, creating at first, a trickle of truth that slowly turns into a flowing stream which continues to grow with time until it becomes a raging torrent rushing headlong to the sea, an ocean of change for which we have combined with the forces before us until we are something to be reckoned.
This is who we must be, regarding our past as something more than an oddity to be admired with precipitous contempt, but rather, learn and grow adding to the flow so that those lives given for the cause are not lost, give up in vain as the lone droplet, but rather, as those culminated drops of precipitation that combine repeatedly until there is something unmistakably greater than anything anyone being could have ever imagined.
This is why I continue on, without knowing …why.
“Thus says the Lord: “Behold, waters rise out of the north, And shall be an overflowing flood; They shall overflow the land and all that is in it, The city and those who dwell within; Then the men shall cry, And all the inhabitants of the land shall wail.” -Jeremiah 47:2
