In Honor...

..nine sprigs of lavender from my garden for the nine African-Americans murdered in their church in Charleston, South Carolina, by a young white man they had welcomed into their Bible study meeting.

My roots run deep in the South. I was born there, as were many of my ancestors, including a Major and a Captain who served in the Confederate Army. I feel certain that all of them would be as appalled as I am by this unfathomable crime.

There are some in this country who say that had the African Emanuel Methodist Episcopal Church not been a designated "gun-free zone" -- if those nine people had owned handguns and brought them to their Bible study -- that some of those deaths might have been prevented.

I can only shake my head, in disbelief and sorrow.