The Amazing Internet

When I was a little girl, my parents were missionaries. First to China, where we were deported about a year after arrival since the communists were basically shutting the country down to westerners. We went from there to Australia where my father was an itinerant Bible teacher, going from city to city. (Please, do NOT think Elmer Gantry here!!). At one point, we ended up in Tasmania....

I have few memories of our life in Oz. I do remember my daddy taking me outside one night to see the flying foxes. I have a picture of me holding a *real* koala. I go into withdrawal if I can't have a regular fix of Vegemite, even today. I remember hunting for gifts on Christmas, and going to school with Heather and David when we lived in -- was it Melbourne? Adelaide? Brisbane?

About four years ago I got a surprising e-mail from "Nan" in Australia. She had been looking for my father on the internet, and found my e-mail address. Yes -- it was the Nan we had lived with in Tasmania. She had a son who was just a month younger than I -- and I remembered playing with him on his tricycle and keeping it away from David, his slightly younger brother.

Nan and Don had kept in touch with Mother and Daddy over the years, and at some point, Hugh and I corresponded for a brief period of time when I was in nursing school and he was working north of Alice Springs and Ayers Rock (Uluru). But that was (mumble mumble) years ago...

Nan and I wrote back and forth a couple of times in 2002, and then lost touch. But several months ago, I got an e-mail from Torrey telling me to go to her wedding website on The Knot. There was a note from Nan. Through some circuitous manifestation of the internet known only to geeks and others more savvy than I, Nan had ended up on Torrey's wedding webpage.

Nan and I have since corresponded a few times. This is truly a voice out of my past and how delighted I am that we have been in touch. She has her own blog which I enjoy reading on a fairly regular basis. What is amazing is that we both share a love for mothers and babies and attachment parenting....

So, dear Nan, if you are reading this, here is a picture of wee Janny from those many years ago...(this is NOT the live koala from Lone Pine but one that was given to me that I still have...)