Dear Diary,

We rode to Minnesota and found Uncle David's house. It's barely a house, though. I have never seen a house smaller than his. The old man, who didn't look healthy at all, slowly opened the door with his weak muscles.

"What's wrong, Uncle? You look exhausted," I whispered.

It brought tears to my eyes to see the skinny man. What had happened to him? Then, his weary eyes widened when he saw who I was.

Lily!" He shouted weakly. We embraced each other and he led me into the tiny house called to someone in the kitchen to prepare dinner.

"Who are you with, Uncle?" I didn't know whom he had told to make the feast. "Is Aunt Lucy with you?" I asked eagerly, for I hadn't seen Aunt Lucy since I was 2.

"Yes," he answered. "And someone else, too."

I waited to see who was entering the room. My breath was stolen from me. It was my own mother. She was smiling, joyfully. I felt as if I was six years old again as I fell into her arms, crying with joy.

Thank you God, was all I could think.

Then the words, "I love you Mama" escaped my lips in louds sobs.

I hadn't lost the chance to tell her after all. God had given it to me. My father may have died, but God had given me back my lost mother.

"I love you, too, Lily," my mother cried.

We took Mother, Uncle David, and Aunt Lucy to Calvin's house, and lived there with our big, united family. We went to Church every week to praise God, and celebrated Christmas and Easter together every year. Before long, I was pregnant with a baby boy, whom I named Destin after my good father.

Today, I read this diary every once in awhile to remind myself of my life in the South...which I will never forget. Not because I wanted to remember all the bad things that happened there, but because that was where I was born and where I grew up. That was where God decided to put me in the beginning of my life. And out of it, God had carried me to freedom.

The South was where the memories of my father live. He was not gone. He was in Heaven. He was still with me. But my life as a mistreated slave was not. It was nothing more than a memory.

This Diary Belongs To:

Lily, a Free Woman of the North