The warmth of family, and the hot Virginia summer

The days when we did everything together don’t seem that long ago. And yet, they are, and somehow it has been six months since I’ve seen my children. They’ve nested and started careers and then they haven’t changed at all. It’s been so good to be here, staying in Megan and Jacob’s log cabin, sampling a bit of their everyday lives.

Megan and I visited Belle Isle, site of a former Civil War POW camp, where she told me the story of “Crazy Bet,” the Union spy who hid beneath the cloak of mental illness to pass along crucial information. After freeing her family’s own slaves, she used her inheritance to buy and free their relatives.
  

The falls on the James River that now draw swimmers and rafters, once attracted native tribes, who agreed to short-term peace when the fish were running in the spring. A sign on Belle Isle described the bravado of the teenage boys, who rode the backs of pregnant 8-foot sturgeon here, to impress the girls.

  
Jacob’s family included me in their July 4th celebrations, including plenty of great southern home cooking and lots of little girls and bubbles. We also went with Jacob’s mom, Janet, to see fireflies with an entomologist in one of Richmond’s wetland parks. Who knew there were many species, each with its distinctive color, flight, and blinking pattern? Seeing the pitch-black meadow alight with a myriad of twinkling insects was well worth staying up late.  And saying farewell was not too hard, as Megan, Jacob, and Taylor will all be coming to Maine in August.