Wednesday, July 15, 2009

She Was There

I suppose we all have a special place, a place where, when we visit, life’s memories can be called up by the simple act of standing quietly for a moment and waiting…waiting to hear from people, pets and times that made us who we became. Maybe you’d call it home. I took a trip back to Knoxville, Tennessee, this past week and visited with an old friend I consider to be home. She just happens to be a house, but she’s still standing and still giving off that biblical look that seems to say, “Come unto me all ye who labor and are heavy-laden and I will give you rest.” And although my loved ones were no longer there, she gave up her memories as I stood in the old driveway and looked up at windows that had peered out on eighty years of dreams lost and found, loved ones in a Normandy grave, marriages lasting sixty years, children gone too soon, and Papa Jack, an old Kentuckian and my grandfather. She was his house, built on a hill, and surrounded by hundred year oak trees with acorns and leaves in the fall and plenty of shade for summers. She gave shelter and love for many years to those who lived there, which is why, I suppose, she’s still standing. Two stories with an attic full of bedtime stories waiting to be read by loving aunts, a staircase that creaked and moaned and a grandfather clock chiming the hour to signal the arrival of various “ghosts” heard late in the night. She heard the news December seventh, 1941 when one of her “sons” realized his life would never be the same. She was there on November 22, 1963 when our country “grew up” and again on April fourth, 1968 when we realized we had not grown enough. She saw pets and people come and go, like old Chipper, the sweet, golden cocker spaniel, whose ears shared the food bowl each time he ate and my cousin's dog Spike, who roamed the woods out back until a car caught up with him on Sharp’s Ridge. She heard Santa's bells on Christmas Eve as he drove his sleigh through her woods, and always stopped whether we were naughty or nice. And she watched as Aunt Jo beat the batter of chocolate into homemade fudge. We had quite a visit as she reminded me of those Fatima cigarettes Papa Jack would smoke. They were, “the most powerful draw of tobacco made and would take your head clean off” (Dirty Harry). He lit those Fatimas with a bona fide, long stick, strike anywhere, sulfur match, the smell of which never left the house and in fact is probably still there today, floating high in the rafters. We listened to baseball on the front porch by radio and Papa Jack could make you think you were behind the dugout with a bag of peanuts. I swear it was as real as going to Turner Field and not near as pricey. I have no idea how many more times I’ll be seeing my old friend. No doubt she will out live me and when she goes a century of memories go with her. But in her brick and mortar will lay the bits and pieces of who I am today, a grateful son for all the people who lived in that old house. I’m grateful for the morning devotionals, the unconditional love and charity shown each day by those who lived there and Papa Jack, my grandfather. Most of us have a place, someplace really special, where we can stand and wait …wait for the memories to come... the memories that tell us who we are. Dorothy was right you know, “There’s no place like home.” I hope you’ve found yours.

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