Things Left Undone..

My mom and dad got home this evening from their recent European trek across Germany, Switzerland and Italy. The trip held special meaning to them for several reasons, but the main was that it was a kind of finishing of something that was left undone. All the years of being dragged to my tepid grandmother’s house outside St. Louis, I vividly remember the huge fairy tale scene that was painted and framed above her stiff, towel lined couch. I don’t believe the depiction of the snow capped mountains and the quaint chalets were actually of Switzerland or Germany, but my grandmother would always specifically refer to one of these locales as she would gaze and sigh, “someday I will get over there.” But like most of us, her dreams and her reality rarely crossed paths with one another and she passed away eight years ago without ever seeing the cities where her ancestors came from just one or two generations prior to her upbringing in Indiana. It seemed like poetic justice tonight when both my mom and dad said that Speyer, Germany, the home of the Hoffman side of the family, was their most pleasant surprise of the trip. They commented on how perfect this little town was and what a shame that the guidebooks don’t even mention its existence. My dad even believes he located the evangelical church that his grandfather attended before coming to the United States. So somewhere in that great by-and-by, I’m sure my grandmother shyly smiled from her quaint chalet as she finally got to see the mountains that hang majestically over Speyer, Germany through the eyes of her son and daughter-in-law.