The Donner Ponder

PONDERING THE DONNER PARTY

Where did our lifetimes come from, and the air we breathe and the blood that sustains us?

Where comes our state of health, and the plot of land we would grow upon
and the deeds we were to perform there?

What Mastermind determined our looks, and gave us our personality,

and the network of our minds, our talents, and our foibles?

Who fashioned our futures and molded our mothers and fathers,

and country, and a space upon that country where we are to mingle and to quarrel,
to make up, to seek harmony and peace?

Who put me beside you and the foundation to get us there?

As James Reed stood at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range and marveled at the blizzards that were capable of leaving drifts 15 feet deep, and the treacherous terrain that went up and beyond him seemingly forever,

I wonder if these were some of the questions he asked himself in 1846.

As he looked back on his decisions, and his motivations, and the past few days and these circumstances that arose and fell between himself and those who literally entrusted their lives to him,

I wonder what his thoughts were at that monumental point in time.

What I see when I watch the world go by as I gaze out the window is meat for my mind to chew upon.

I see the Occidental ground in California as the camel-colored prairie grass-type terrain slips by.

It's not hard to imagine the mountains into those that Virginia Reed Murphy had to face in 1846.

How innocent they must have appeared from far away while the powder-fine dust and the mosquitoes
and the unrelentless sun mocked each spin of the wooden wheels and jeered at each step she took.

The glaring sun must have made it hard for her to imagine freezing cold temperatures and
a ground donned in white habiliments that could

bury a cow and cover the ground for months on end
without let-up.

As the vehicle continues to move onward, I can see the wagon train and hear every rumble
as she labored beneath a hot sky.

Suddenly there's a body by the side of the road.
It could have been the carcass of a white tail deer except for the long tail that stretched out behind it.