There's No Place Like Home...

When I arrived at Inverness train station, I saw this sweet and friendly lady waving at me and smiling. I didn't know who she was and just thought she was an incredibly friendly person, so I waved and smiled back. Then she called my name and I realized she must have been waiting for me. This was my distant cousin Marion and she had driven down to greet me with a Highland welcome so that I would immediately feel at home. She took me to the airport to get my rental car, let me follow her through the busy part of town to practice driving a stick shift, and left me on the right road to my next accommodation. I may or may not have gotten stuck there for quite a while afterwards, and admittedly questioned myself as to what I was thinking about trying to do this on my own. It's amazing that after over 100 years of being apart, family that didn't even know me pulled through for me in ways that saved me from having a complete and utter meltdown. I've never met friendlier people than the Scots, and Marion saved me that day.

I successfully navigated my way in my tiny mint green Fiat 500 through the Highlands on my way to Kyle of Lochalsh where I've been staying. I only stopped once to ask for directions. I walked into a bar, said I was lost, and a guy sitting at the bar said, "This is a dream come true!" True Scottish humor, but he was actually right, my time up here has really been a dream come true.

I had plans one day to go up and meet my existing family who still lived in the village of Glendale where my great grandmother and great grandfather grew up. I must admit, as I neared the village, I was talking to my great grandparents in my mind, and telling them, "I'm coming home." I've never seen anyone connected to their land more than my Navajo friends back in America, and though I've always admired their viewpoint, I've never really felt their sense of connection. But in Glendale I felt this overwhelming surge of nostalgia and connectedness for land and people that I had never met or known, and the water well burst. I was trying to drive as my eyes were blurring up, but I just couldn't stop. I actually felt like my heart might shatter with happiness because I really felt like I was going home. I knew that both sides of my family were looking down on me from heaven and watching over me and I know that they celebrate my victories with me and cradle me in their arms when I'm sorrowful. I felt so proud and so strong. Even now it makes me misty eyed just remembering. I know they were happy to have me come home.

I met my cousin Adrian who has his own joinery business, and still raises sheep as my great grandfather would have done, and, is in fact in the same home that my grandfather lived in. His lovely wife Anna and their wee boy Alisdair took me all around the village to see points of interest. I think I may have found my great grandmother's home, where she and her brother used to play in the trees and pretend they were sailing on a great ship. She, unfortunately lost her brother on a great ship, and that tragedy still stays with me, as I love my own brother and sisters more than anything.

I went to the cemetery where all of my ancestors were buried, and I believe that Peter Campbell, the brother of my grandfather who passed away as a conscientious objector, as I mentioned in my original blog, may in fact be there amongst his family in an unmarked grave. The story of his being taken has been passed down over the years, and according to a neighbor, Sam Thorburn, who my cousins have asked, he was out working in the field one day with his father when they came and took him away to prison just for being a peaceful man who wanted to live a simple life. At the end of my journey, I will be in Inverness, where he passed away, and where his brothers Neil and Alec went to retrieve his remains. I will say my final goodbyes to him there in my own special way.

I'd also like to thank the Masonic lodges in Scotland who helped me find my family and treated me so kindly.
 
This journey makes me thankful for who I am, for my parents, siblings, children, and for my extended family here and gone because we would not be here and thriving had they not paved the way for us. When you know where you come from, you must be thankful for who you are and will become. I'll leave you with one last quote from one of my favorite movies, as I feel that it directly applies to this soul searching quest of mine:-

Dorothy: "Oh, will you help me? Can you help me?"
Glinda, the Good Witch: "You don’t need to be helped any longer. You’ve always had the power to go back to Kansas."
Dorothy: "I have?"
Scarecrow: "Then why didn’t you tell her before?"
Glinda, the Good Witch: "Because she wouldn’t have believed me. She had to learn it for herself."

 

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