Today was a memorable day

Today was a memorable day, and I went back on a path that I rarely go on, but sometimes remembering the past hits just right.  You know how it is.  It just touches the vulnerable spots.  We all have those days when we hear a song or see a particular place, or eat something that just triggers those emotions from long ago.

Meelbroeke® are meant to do just that.  Bring memories of times gone by.  Memories of long road trips in a car that reminds you a bit of being on a ship.  Those cars had huge spaces behind the back seats where you could lie.  Not these flimsy, removable covers of nowadays.  No, I was about 5 or 6 years old and we would leave home at 3 in the morning to travel 5 or 6 hours to the family in Bloemfontein.  I would lie on this space behind the back seats, my nose almost touching the window above me.  Watching the stars and sometimes the moon go by, knowing that the sun will soon be turning the sky red and then……the first stop for coffee!  Not at one of these modern One-Stop places where coffee comes in a disposable cup, no no no, it was in the middle of nowhere beside the road.  Home-brewed coffee from a flask, with a generous scoop of condensed milk.  And homemade bread with real butter and apricot jam that was not bought from a store.  Soft, white bread and tangy apricot jam.  I can still taste it.  The coffee was brewed through a sack cloth, much like the stuff Meelbroeke® is made from today.  Real, good to earth filter coffee.

It was a time when people really cared about each other.  There were no mobile phones, so if you had the misfortune of a flat tyre or other problems on your way, there was always someone who would stop and go the extra mile (literally!)  to help.  Not that it is not happening today still, but everybody is so busy and sometimes so pre-occupied with their own lives that things goes past them.  We are all like that.  Life is fast.  And it takes a big chomp out of our lives to just survive.  We struggle to get through our days just doing the stuff that we have to do.  And maybe we miss a lot of joy along the way.

I was driving back from Hartbeespoort Dam today, where I stocked Hart Mark, when I came to a rather big intersection in Pretoria.  I was waiting at the traffic light and so was two busses opposite, filled with school kids.  A man was standing on the corner, not begging, but clearly waiting for something to come his way.  We sometimes feel that we do not want to give anything anymore – there are so many!  How can you give to everybody?  And if you don’t, who to give to??  But these kids in the busses, they gave this man so many things.  I could not see what it was, but it was food I suppose.  They gave without hesitation.  And he accepted gracefully.  I thought to myself – the world is a good place to live in after all.  There are good people, there are good kids.  It is time to see it.

Then tonight, as I was walking back home after a visit to my neighbour, classical music was pouring from a window across the street. The same beautiful, soothing music my dad used to play when we drove that long road to Bloemfontein and I was watching the stars.

So many things have changed in the last 50 odd years and yet, so little.  Music still invokes that wonderful feeling of safety.  Children feed the poor.  And Meelbroeke® changed a bit from the 1900’s, but it still gives you the comfort that it did years ago.

Let us not forget, that after all, the world as we know it is still a good place to live in.  See the beauty in it, lie on your back somewhere and watch the stars, they have not changed in millennia.  And know that behind all of the laughter and someone’s friendly “Hello” in a shopping centre or at a toll gate, there is a beautiful person that just needs to be seen.

Blessings and love

Mari