It was summer of 1948.
Mother and Daddy could finally take that long planned vacation and Jody and the baby brother spent that summer on the farm.
Daddy had worked three years in Venezuela to pay for his college education and had longed to return for a visit.
Jody relished her visits with Nana and Granddaddy in the loving, secure environment they provided.
This year reality struck.
Jody witnessed shocking experiences as well as heartwarming and comforting ones.
The baby brother was still too young to appreciate farm life and to this day cannot recall much about it.
Nana and Granddaddy had grown up in farming communities in Michigan and had chosen to retire to a small Midwestern farm.
Chickens provided eggs daily.
Once in a while chickens were the highlight of Sunday dinners.
Early one hot, dry morning Jody witnessed the beheading of the Sunday dinner.
Granddaddy whirled the chicken around breaking its neck.
Jody watched in amazement as the body jumped around the yard, finally dying in a heap before her.
Nana gathered it up and took it to the kitchen to prepare it for Sunday dinner.
When Betty Sue's piglets were routing around her for milk one tiny baby just couldn't find its way.
Granddaddy grabbed it up and placed it in a bucket.
Nana had requested a bucket of water and so he grabbed another bucket and headed toward the pump.
Jody skipped beside him and pumped a bucket full.
Then Granddaddy placed the other bucket below the pump..
"No!" protested the horrified little girl.
For the rest of that summer Jody nurtured the little pig in its new home in the grainery.
She fed it milk from a bottle just like Mother had fed the baby brother.
It was her first pet.
She adored it.
She learned the heartwarming lesson.
You love whom you serve.
Beauty's twin calves were tethered to the windmill in the side yard near the house.
Beauty was responsible for the rich milk which Nana separated in a machine in one corner of the kitchen and made butter and cream.
Jody always got the first glass of the sweet, warm milk.
It tasted different.
She loved it.
The new realities of that summer were both shocking and endearing.
It was her last summer on the farm.
Granddaddy died that Fall and Nana came to live with Mother, Daddy, Jody and the baby brother.
Nana sewed all of Jody's clothes.
They walked together in step.
They played Canasta and Solitaire.
Nana was Jody's best friend for the next twenty years.
Just as the little girl experienced poignant, loving and secure realities of growing up, children today can feel secure in their environments.
As Jody's grandparents provided safety for her, so it is the responsibility of adults to secure the environment for the little ones in their care.
The current crime and more global community of this era require that different modes be put in place to secure family futures.