Roots

This past Wednesday I took my boys, Gage (2 and a half) and Luke (5 months), to visit their great-grandfather Bud (or as Gage likes to say, "Papa Buuuuuuuuuuuuudddd") at his house. It was a fun visit; my aunt Karen was there to help with Luke while Grandpa and I took Gage outside to go see some horses, play basketball and just be outside to enjoy the amazingly warm 65 degree February day.

My grandparents built that house right before I was born. So for me and my cousins Val, Sabrina, Will, Michael and Troy (miss you buddy) that house is the house we associate with them. That's the ONLY house we think of when we hear the term "Grandma and Grandpa's house". It's always been there to welcome and accept us no matter what.

Collectively, my cousins and I, we all couldn't be more different from each other in many respects. Especially me (I'm sure each cousin will say it's them). It's tough to be the coolest one of the bunch...my cross to bear I guess. Anyway I digress. The point is we all have our individual quirks and such, but under the roof at Grandma and Grandpa's it didn't matter. We were all accepted and celebrated for what was uniquely ours as individuals and as members of the family. A very warm, loving and inviting space in which to exist and just be. It's where Grandma and I would plan trips to the moon and where Grandpa taught me my first guitar chord. It was open C.

My grandmother passed away in November of '07. The Tuesday before our visit would've been their 59th anniversary. We all miss her terribly, Grandpa probably most of all. I would've given anything for her to be able to see me get married and to meet my two boys. Since her passing, I can count on one hand the amount of times I've been over to the house. It hasn't been on purpose, just the usual busy nature of life. Grandpa also hadn't felt like hosting the usual festvites that were traditonally centered there: Thanksgiving, birthdays and Christmas. Only in '10 was there a family gathering at Grandpa's for Christmas for the first time since her passing. There was one last year as well, but I couldn't attend because I had gotten out of the hospital Christmas Eve (another story for another time) and was too tired to attend. Made me sad to miss it. Some of the best memories of that house are from Christmas time. Not to mention all the birthday parties. Mine and Grandma's were close together, Nov. 26 and Dec. 5 respectively. So while the family was gathered for Thanksgiving, we often combined them into a dual celebration. NOTHING like a full Thanksgiving dinner followed by birthday cake and presents. Not to mention the occassional cake fight that would break out; I'm pretty sure I still have icing somewhere in my left ear.

Alot of time has passed since those days. Us grandchildren have grown up and are all doing our own things. Some of us have gotten married. My goofy ass even went so far as to have kids of my own. And I was here with them now at this house I did so much growing up in. On the way outside, Gage was walking in between Grandpa and I, each of us holding one of his hands. I couldn't get the whole circle of life (and all that crap) thing out of my head....came this close to holding Gage up in the air Lion King style. There was something terribly surreal about watching my own son run and explore the same yard and woods where I spent many a summer and holiday doing the same.

My mind began to wander and eventually it headed straight backwards. Thankfully, Grandpa was around to help keep an eye on the kid because part of me suddenly wasn't there. Half my brian was remembering walking along the fenceline to get around to the pond to go fishing; playing horseshoes with my uncles; the time I threw a boomerang I found in the garage, not expecting it to come back...but it did (I had to duck and it skinned my knuckles as it wizzed over my head); being lifted off the ground by Tippy the dog when I was a toddler; running, wrestling and sometimes fighting with my cousins in that big yard; cooking out on the grill on the porch........I was suddenly trying to keep all the memories that popped up like a flood from squeezing out of my eyes.

I turned away for a minute and walked over to the tree I brought them to plant years ago when I was in the 4th Grade and our teacher Mrs.Porter gave us each a sapling for Arbor Day. I picked up a pine cone from the tree (now a good 150 feet tall) to take home and turned back around to look over the expansive property to see all the ghosts that were flooding my brain again. It hit me at that moment that, someday, another family may be living in this house, playing in this yard. Perhaps they won't like where my tree is planted and cut it down. One day someone may move our memories out so they can move their own in. I can't describe the feeling of how it felt to see the past all at once and wishing you could capture it in one place forever, where nobody could ever touch it and rearrange it. When I was a kid, man, this place was FOREVER. The world out there was going to change but this place never would. It was somehow immune to the changes of time. And it overwhelmed me to realize the fact that that wasn't true. And all I could think, almost bitterly, was "Dammit...it all went by so fast. Too fast." There are times you don't feel like being a grown-up for just a minute, wishing you could step back into something that's not coming back and breath it in one more time. So I stood there, just enjoying being where I was for the moment, hanging on to it. Watching my son trample on the same hill I had. Happy that he is getting to enjoy a bit of what I enjoyed about being here.

We went back inside after a good hour and Gage continued to run and explore inside the house. He had a scab on his head from a few days before where he ran into the island in the middle of the kitchen, discovering he wasn't short enough to clear it anymore. It made me chuckle as he ran past the spot in this kitchen where I did the same thing when I was two.


Later, the kids were packed up and we were heading back down the driveway. I looked over my shoulder back at the house and remembered what a wonderful feeling it was (and still is) to come over the hill of that road and see that house sitting on the hill. Knowing all the love that awaited us (and still awaits us) there. I looked in the rearview at my boys and thought that even though my childhood is over, their's is just beginning. And it's my job to make sure theirs is as filled with the same loving memories as mine was. You know, circle of life (and all that crap).

There will be many more visits to see Grandpa. This visit certainly wasn't the last. He just turned 80 and is in good health; still spry and good-humored. There are still memories to make there. This day was just one of those times in life where you realize how much something means to you..how much something is a part of you. And how nothing lasts forever no matter how much you may wish it would.