Where I'm supposed to be!

How to even start this post--- what's been happening in my travels, or honor my father's memory?  Let me start with my travels, the rest will come as I write.

Monday, an eventful day, after the rain forest, changing $US to cedi's, lunch, and dinner looking out on the Atlantic.  Cape Coast is a paradox of very old Africa, very poor Africa and yet very new and very rich Africa in it's dependence on technology and it's beautiful and generous people.  Cape Coast is a fishing town, the first capital of Ghana until it moved to Accra, 2 hours to the northeast.  Nana Gyepi, my host is a traditional tribal chief of Cape Coast and everyone knows him, and he gets special treatment wherever he goes.  There is a real split between the traditions of the tribal culture and the modern world; everyone here has at least one, some two and three cell phones, thus my reference to the modern.  So Nana and I have spent a great amount of our time together in conversation about his vision and mission in life, to create the "Tower of Return" here in Ghana.  His dream is to build a grand complex of historical, cultural, educational, and economic significance so great that it will draw Africans of the Diaspora (those of African decent spread all over the world), and all others wishing to come to Africa to connect with the African Motherland.  It will be sort of the mecca for those coming to/returning to the continent.  So he foresees museums, a library, conference and convention offerings, schools, cultural centers, hotels--- everything one would need to learn about and connect with Africa.  I learned of his work when we met in 2000 in Richmond, and I have been in touch with him since that time trying to do what I could to help his mission along.  So my visit here is as much about running my marathon as it is engaging in this endeavor and continuing to support and help Nana realize this dream.  So that's a little about Nana--- there is a lot more to tell to this story, but time and space won't allow that right now. 

Tuesday was spent at the Elmina Castle, another slave castle in the town of Elmina, with a similar and horrific story about centuries of colonization, torture, and grief for Africans taken into slavery.  Pictures can only scratch the surface of telling those stories, but I'll try to post some to give a bit of a glimpse. 

And now, I guess the news from home that my father, Herbert Monroe Groce, Jr. passed away on Monday September 20.  It has been a very difficult to receive and process this event, this news, so very far away from home, from my family, my friends and those that care for and support me.  Understanding the timing has been the hardest, really, knowing that there is absolutely no way that I can be there in person for his home-going services on Friday of this week.  My sister Lauren has been a great support for all around her family, and I send her all my love and support as she and all our loved ones and friends prepare to celebrate my dad's life and legacy.  He and I had a distant relationship, and I suppose we were as "close" as a distant relationship will allow.  I last saw him at the celebration of his 80th birthday in Sept. 2009, and it was a great event, and a wonderful chance to see him, and also reconnect with Aunts, Uncle's and cousins I had not seen since we were all children.  My father was a man of great force, force of personality, force of conviction, and force of volume (spoke, laughed, and lived louder than anyone else I've ever known).  Nana will help me do something to honor his memory and his life and send him along here in Ghana on Friday; Nana is a very spiritual person, of the Akan tradition so it will be African in nature, which I think might really please and delight my dad, at least I hope so.  My heart is broken that I cannot be with my family on this occasion; they will hopefully know and feel that I am with them all in spirit!!!

So, that means I have him to watch and run with me on Sunday--- an angel closer to me than perhaps anyone else in the universe.  With that support I know that I will indeed run like the wind--- the wind beneath the wings on Sunday will be my father--- I couldn't have asked God for a greater gift.  Nana thinks my dad had something to do with this arrangement--- I can't help but believe that someone/something did!!! 

Look out for pictures, either here on my FB page.  So much to show you, only so much bandwith to tell it!  Best for now, Cheryl