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He had made the pilgrimage as promised. He didn’t know if he believed the ancestors would know he’d kept his word, but life was complicated enough without angering spirits, ancestral or not.
And it would have made his mother happy to know he’d visited the bridge his great-great-great-great-grand (or however many generations it was) had helped build. She’d always longed to make the trip back herself, and couldn’t.
“The sweat of your ancestor dripped into the stones,” his mother had told him, “his blood and thus yours lives in them.”
He heard her voice in Jia’s when the child, sober in pigtails and pink frilly dress, studied the structure. “So this is where we came from?”
He nodded.
His daughter walked to the first pile and touched it reverently. “Zēngzǔfù built this one,” the six-year-old stated. “Nǎinai told me. She showed me in my dream last night.”
For What Pegman Saw: Jaingxi province of China
Na'ama Yehuda 
Na’ama Y’karah,
I’d say he’s a believer now. We are the sum total of our roots aren’t we? Even when we don’t know where those roots have their beginnings. Love the last line. I could see the little girl in the pink dress connecting to her heritage. Lovely.
Shalom,
Rochelle
My Pegman offering is here: https://rochellewisoff.com/2019/02/16/the-golden-lotus/
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Thank you, my friend! 🙂
Yes, we are all of us connected, and if we go back far enough, we all have shared roots besides. 🙂
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I loved the connection, and from what I have been reading lately about the young accessing things closed to adults, it becomes very likely!
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🙂 Thanks! Yes, I think that children are often privy to things we have forgotten how to know or notice … 🙂
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A childhood dream that came true quickly 🙂 A nice piece.
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Thank you, Bernadette! 🙂
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I’m breathless. This is my favorite kind of story! Beautifully written.
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Oh, Yay! What high praise! Me happy! 🙂
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