After a harsh winter in the hinterlands of Royal Oak, Michigan, my family (daughter, son-in-law, 3 grand-girls) packed up, lock, stock and barrel, and moved into Detroit, the city.
Friends said "Why would you want to move to Deeetroit!?! It's Dangerous there!!!"
Honestly, this may sound odd, but we were called to be here. Something has been calling this family since we moved here 3 years ago. Look at me, a woman who raised her kids in a tiny, perfect mountain town in the Columbia Gorge, loving the view of Mount Hood from my front porch, living 5 minutes away from my job where I was lucky to work with the nicest teenagers God ever created. Thirtyfive years in Eden! Why would I want to come into the big city, with it's financial worries and burned out and abandoned buildings.
Drive down Woodward. Yes, there's burned out buildings, but their black bones are beautiful! There are buildings to rival European capitals; churches built by artisans' loving hands. I walk past one of these grand old houses, and my breath catches. Beauty is here.
The people living here are beautiful. I've been in our elderly house for a week and have met all my neighbors. If I had any sort of actual memory (can't blame it on age, always been this way) I'd know all their names! I could take little Roscoe on a walk all by myself and be safe...if it wasn't so darned HOT today! I have found the kind of neighbors I left behind in Hood River; people who are eager to know you and care instantly. This is Detroit.
So, watch the national news; think, with pity, how far the great city has fallen. Look again. Where there is love, there is greatness. Detroit will, like the phoenix, rise from her ashes, as long as there is love.
I love it. :-)
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