July 1, Canada Day and the first day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. My goal is to show up every day in July with a new post. I’m not a new comer to this challenge. As usual I have no planned theme for my writing. I have no business or service to promote. I write because I love words. They are powerful and magical. They can make or break you. So I am careful with my words. Once said, you cannot unsay them. Say the wrong word(s), good will and friendships can be severed, sometimes permanently.

I will try to tread lightly and carefully through July. These are scary and unbelievable times in the USA and the world. I’ve been reading Heather Cox Richardson and Heather Delaney Reese on the political scenes every morning for awhile now. I am surprised at how I am captured by politics as I was never that interested before. I am appalled at how out right corrupt our world is. I am ashamed that I haven’t been paying attention. We should all be paying attention. What happens to one, happens to all. We are all interconnected.

I was born in China during the times of Mao. I don’t know too much about the politics of my birth country except that it is communist and it is considered very bad and dreaded here in the West. I left when I was 6 years old. I don’t remember much but I do have some memories. I remember standing in line with my mother at the market with pieces of paper to buy meat, sugar, etc. Everything was rationed. You were allowed so much and you give so much to the government. I remember hearing the sound of the firing squad. People get killed speaking ill of the government. My mother had to be a witness at one. She said she couldn’t look, pretended and looked at the ground.

With what’s happening in the world today, I am reminded that we are back in those times again. I cannot help but feel sad and bad at all the corruption, injustices and killings. I am remembering my maternal grandmother thrown in jail by Mao and his gang. They took her in place of my grandfather who escaped to Hong Kong. She said heaven saved her and she learned to write her name in jail. Seems ironic now that she didn’t know how to write her name. My grandfather was the principal and mayor of their village. But they were not land owners.

I am, in essence, writing these words for my grandmother and mother in heaven. Hallowed be their names.