Letters Home: Section 1, Letter dated October 16

October 16
Katrina,



In the summer months, from the window or from the porch, I’ve watched the visitors come and go. Restless and unable to slow down, they are, as they walk the fields, view parts of the house, and visit the monuments; they are uncomfortable it would seem to slow the pace of life and leave behind their offices and places of business. Phones, they carry, and use frequently as they speak of business and other affairs, paying little attention to those who came here with them. In notebooks carried in purses or on the backs of literature they are given, they scribble notes, reminders of what else they feel they should be accomplishing.



Do they ever scribble of home, family, or holidays, I wonder; or do they note reminders of personal accomplishments yet needed to be made?



There once was a time when families lived off the land and businesses were few. Now, over time, we’ve created a society where that is no longer possible; working the land nearly an image of the past as farmland has grown tall, concrete buildings instead of corn, industry instead of feed. Families are now living off of businesses just as businesses are living off of families, an interdependency created by man that was not born within them.



But, somewhere in the rush of progress, in business ventures and efforts to climb corporate ladders, in the lure that has been created toward an elusive dream allegedly able to be bought with money, it has been forgotten about the importance of family, of personal interaction with people, of life outside of the business world. Acceptable, it has become, to make a life of business instead of using business to make a life.



People must learn to balance business and life, allowing themselves to enjoy life while it is available to them. After all, what good is business if one dies alone, having money in his coffin but without family to bid him adieu?



Father knew that.



Sisters,
Christina




This work is fictional. Any resemblance to actual situations or persons, living or dead, is coincidental and unintentional.