June 28,2012.
More than forty years ago a friend gave me a ginko leaf. She also gave me a bible to place it in as she was shocked and astounded to find that I didn’t own a bible.
The ginko leaf has been replaced several times since then. The Bible is still the one she bought for me.
This friend taught me a lot. She was Italian American (first generation) and grew up on Long Island, New York.
The most important thing she taught me, a little girl from the midwest where everyone looked and sounded the same was to pay attention to the little details and see others as they see themselves, and to honor that in every way you can. For her I learned to say “italian” in a new way, I learned to not say “Italian” with a long I sound because she felt that it was not the correct pronunciation. This little Iowa girl had no idea she said it wrong. This lesson is and was a hard one. How could I be so incorrect without even knowing I was?
How could such a small thing make such a big difference?
People are very different when you get off of the farm!
Growing up in Rural America we all held certain things to be truth, and we thought we knew how to behave in “polite society” and we were the best gossips that ever could be found. A small community with similar backgrounds and similar ways of eating, talking, and sharing with each other. No one ever told me that when I moved to a new place there would be people that lived and looked different, that there would be people that spoke different and took offense when their names were mispronounced. I learned it from a really wonderful friend who left my life after she was my teacher of how to live life in a larger more all inclusive world than I had ever even dreamed of. They say people come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. She was definately a reason and a season. Thank you my wonderful Anne Marie.
The story of the ginko leaf is a tradition that if you keep a ginko leaf pressed in your bible or other holy book you will never have lack in your life. I have carried this lovely thought with me and always love the kindness and tradition that inspired her gift to me and my gift to others when a ginko leaf is available.
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