One of my requests, during my time at home, was to visit our childhood house on the lake road. It was the sisters and daughters who toured our home, now vacant. Stepping out of the van and into the yard was like stepping into a story book of whose story you are very familiar.
The yard was quiet and the changes, well there were always changes growing up. Mom was too creative to let things lie the same way for long. These changes were par for the course. We walked by the old pump but couldn't linger on because we feared the goose who had chosen to nest close by was going to come and chase us away.
We weren't ready to leave yet.
The hedge, ten times it's size, the one that used to hide the grape vines and fruit trees. That, and in its even younger years, provided a buffer from the tall corn fields and all the hidden forts and treasures contained within. The hedge changed just as we had.
We stepped inside the house. The smells and sights reminded of the love and nurture experienced there. We inspected everything from floor to ceiling, opening doors and drawers, and looking out windows.
It is funny how far back into the story ones mind tries to go.
The closets seemed so much bigger back then. Likewise, our make shift playhouse under the stairs used to be hours of fun to us and now we wonder if we could store a couple of sacks of flour and a mixing machine in that space!
As we wandered through the rooms I wondered out loud how I ended up with the big room. The response was simple, she wanted the smaller one. She reminded me how often we moved furniture in our rooms, redecorated just like our mom did in the rest of the house! We described our favorite wall papers and antique light fixtures.
The mirror at the end of the hall was still fastened with clear claws reminding of the many times we stood in front of it while mom hemmed matching dresses when we were young and personal fashion requests as we grew older. We were privy to an in house fashion designer. She would even supply our barbies with gowns and accessories.
We walked to the barn filled with equipment. They weren't our growing up tractors. They are newer and so much bigger. But we still sat in the wheels and took a picture just like we did so many years earlier.
When we finished lingering and reminiscing we piled in the van and my sister, asked, "do you want to see anything else?"
That started; the growing up tour! Out came stories and laughter.
The impromptu memory tour solicited memories old for me but new for my kids. And the surprise treasure of hearing it from my sisters perspective. We told of beach walks at the cove. Only now it is privatized and I had to stand with arms and camera high enough to capture what I couldn't on my own see.
We used to meet friends there, minutes from our houses, to swim and explore the shipwrecked barge and have bonfires.
On family beach walks we collected interesting rocks, coloured and fossilized and more than once claimed unique pieces of driftwood. Dad dutifully carried it home to be decor for mom's ever growing flower beds.
We stopped to show the kids Hammond marsh only a couple hundred meters from our home. We went there often. It is almost dried up in places now. Then it was a groomed marshland with hiking trails to the lake and water channels to canoe down in summer and skate on in winter. It was there I grew to love pussy willows, lily pads, water bugs and cat tails.
We spoke in disbelief of the hikes we used to take with leopard frogs jumping around our bare flip flopped feet, and whopper snakes swimming in the channels. It was our joy at that time and where we are surely grew the snake and frog phobias we hang on to today! We are positive that we as moms now would not have been so brave to have done the hike without hip waders...maybe chin waders.
I recalled the time when dad cleared areas of ice at the marsh pond so we could skate. I fell so often but didn't want to stop so dad went home and got sponge and padded down the backside of my red, one-piece snow suit.
The school house on the pool farm. The farm we spent hours and hours hoeing at. Hacking impossible ragweed, wearing #2, maybe #4 sun lotion or was it bronzing oil?
We joked that the farm was our summer day camp for weeks. The tomato and pepper plants were captive audience to songs sung at the top of our lungs. We screamed the chorus "fire, fire, fire" completely oblivious to the fact that the neighbors were near...country near. We made shrieking cricket sounds, ate sandwiches and biked home, sometimes making an unannounced stop at the beach for a quick swim before coming home. All this on the farm where we learned to drive tractor and truck. My sister remembers learning to drive a brown GMC standard pick up truck, with the sliding window and 5th wheel hitch, with dad running outside the truck yelling when to shift.
I remembered dad lining me up, sitting on the oversized yellow John Deere tractor seat, hands gripping wide on the black steering wheel over all the gauges I didn't understand. My feet were light years away from the clutch or brake pedals and Dad's instructions were, "steer straight till the end of the row, then I'll come." He always did, just in time to turn us into the next tomato row where I got to keep the wheels between the rows of tomatoes all over again.
Days earlier, it nearly ripped my heart out to bike around the huge country blocks with my kids not knowing that these roads had stories. They biked without knowing names of people who lived in houses. They didn't know that the house with the unfinished siding housed a dog that ran out and barked and chased me, causing my nerves to come undone and my balance to be shaky. The names of neighbours held no significance to them.
They didn't know that the plain old cement pad used to be the place we picked up fertilizer. That the woods at the end of our property was the place we explored, that dad made trails in, that we admired trillium and jack in the pulpits.
They didn't know the stories of newly oiled gravel roads and new spring coats wearing a strip of that same oil up the back as a long reminder of the bike ride to see a friend. Or the joy of ripping through the sandy lane through the field on a skinny wheeled ten speed to meet a friend. Or the anticipation of biking 6 miles to school on hilly roads, my friend with no brakes and no fear!
What fun it was to share, to tell our story and for them to want to hear it.
The tour, the trip, the hanging out, all ended all too quickly. It truly awakened a dormant seed.
As much as I don't believe in magic, I do believe in gifts of grace that only can come from a loving God. My family, my growing up years, are such a gift. Remembering them awakens the gift with such gratitude.
