Talk:A Letter to Her Husband, Absent upon Public Employment

i would like to inform you regarding Mr. A'Rahman he doesn't come on duty today

My ancestor by marriage, and thoughts of her husband away fighting for the colonies

I'm interested in this particularly because Anne bradstreet was Simon Bradstreet(e)s wife, Simon being my ancestor through my fathers blood line. I find this poem so sweet and forlorn, because she misses her husband so much. Her life must have not resembled mine at all, with all the comforts of the 21st century, I know nothing of the challenges, work to keep a home going, the pain of childbirth without modern painkillers, praying for enough food to see her family through the winter. But she says a respite from her forlorness comes when she looks at her children, little reminders of the man she loves very much. I adore this poem as it gives an insight to life at Ipswich, Massachusetts, over 400 years ago, from the viewpoint of the first settlers. What would Anne and Simon think of America today? Could they have possibly envisioned the changes they would see if they could come back today and take a look around. Would they even recognize Ipswich, recognize the people as being anything like their fellow settlers, who believed in and asked God for his protection in this new land, where hostile Indians, and bears, and wolves and whatever else they would have encountered. Americans, myself included, have become weak, ungrateful, and have come to expect a good life because someone promised us an "American Dream" a long time ago. There is no dream, there was Anne Bradstreet, Simon Bradstreet, and all the settlers who lived a very real life of danger to build a new life in the colonies, and suffered loss of every kind while trying to start over here in America (her house burnt down at one point). I look forward to meeting these strong God loving relatives in heaven one day, I'm sure I'll be impressed with the strength I'll see....but before I do, I plan to learn as much as I can about the Bradstreets and other settlers, and even try to emulate the qualities that made these settlers fight and continue fighting for a new life in America, the country we just take for granted today.