Losing My Way Home

We moved around a lot when I was growing up. Sometimes to different cities, once to a different state (twice if you want to be technical, but I was too young to remember it), and once we just moved down the street. We never stayed in one place for more than a year or two. I think three years was our record. Three days was the record on the other end of the spectrum. My dad's parents, however, were the picture of stability. They moved into a house when my dad was about three, if I remember correctly, and rather than move somewhere else when the time came, they just moved the house a couple blocks over. Their home was, to me, my steady home base. I knew from one year to the next where they would be living, I knew that their clock would be ticking away as I slept in the bed at the top of the attic stairs. It was right under a window. I knew they would have green, glass bottles of 7Up in the closet by the front door. I knew what I would see looking out the kitchen window, down to the bird pictured on the big, round thermometer. Their home still shows up in my dreams when I dream of comfort and safety. They moved out of it when I was a teenager, but we had already moved to the opposite end of the country and I only have been to their "new" house four or five times. To me, Grandma and Grandpa's house is still the boxy white cottage with forest in the back yard.
I lost them in quick succession this year. Grandma and Grandpa and my home. I didn't have the privilege of a daily relationship with them, like so much of my family who lived near them did. It's been years since they were well enough to come here for their three-months-a-year visit. So, while I will definitely miss the presence of my grandparents on this planet, I will also miss my connection to that spot on the map. Some invisible string that tied me to them, that ensured I could always tug on it and find my way back, is gone.
There are still lots of family members there, of course. We were invited to spend some time with a few of my cousins. I called up my mom to make sure she was coming. She asked why I needed her to come. I said, "I don't know these people!" She said, "Yes you do! They're your family!" They know stories about me and about my husband and children and brothers because we are connected through my grandparents. And there is still a magical thing about being in a room with people you hardly know, but seeing your eyebrows on somebody else or hearing them tease just as viciously and earnestly as you can. People often have a hard time catching it when I'm teasing. My dad always said it was a family trait, but now I have seen it with my own eyes. I enjoyed tossing a few of my own zingers into the ring, and really enjoyed not having to explain that I was just kidding. Yes, they're my family. Yes, I am connected to them. But the people who connect us are gone now.
There's a big gap in the rings of generations that surround me and my husband and even our children, who are nestled cozily in the center. It's a gaping hole that invites drafts of mortality to ruffle my hair. It's uncomfortable.
We stopped by the "old homestead" before we headed to the airport, at my request. Dad had already been there and didn't really want to go back. It's been long abandoned. The front door is kicked in. But I wanted to take some pictures. Just to somehow have concrete proof that I'm from there. That I belong there too. That I had a homestead once. There was a doe in the yard (pictured above). She didn't run away when we pulled up. We got out and she still didn't move. Then we saw her babies, far off in the trees, their heads peering out of the underbrush and their ears straight up and alert. She was beautiful. Dad said he'd seen her in the yard every morning as he drove to the hospital. The house is just steps away from the hospital. He was looking at her through a window when he called to tell me that Grandpa had passed away.
We stepped gingerly over the broken glass and walked through the disassembled kitchen. The furniture left by previous owners was clumped here and there. I got the kids up on the steps where we used to play so I could get their picture. Mom snapped one shot before Dad whispered urgently that we needed to leave right away. I wanted to at least take some photos outside, but he ushered us silently into the car. There was a light on in the basement, a bullet hole in the floor and shell casings in the kitchen that hadn't been there when he walked through. A little more excitement than I had hoped for, I guess. But I got one photo. And the one photo proves my reasoning for always taking multiple shots (Emma wiggled and her face is blurred), but it's all I've got. So, here are me and my brothers cousins playing on the steps at Grandma and Grandpa's house, and one ill-fated shot of my children, connecting them, I hope, to our "home":





It won't ever be the same. But I guess that's as it should be. Not long from now, it'll be my turn to define "home" for the generations that come after me.