The weekend was a continuing swirl in the week that was lived last week. I left Northwest Arkansas and drove down the mountain and to the deep pine forests where my family’s roots are well established in the history of that which is us. Its a reflective drive for me each time, this time from a new position of observer as my son drove us the entire six hours. The scenery changes from hillsides and valleys with beautiful rock formations and cut away roads near Fayetteville, to the gently rolling hills of Central Arkansas, winding further and further away as you drive South into the heartland of pine country. Not unlike the forest near Hansel and Gretel’s home , my homeland is so dense with pine trees one can avoid the sunlight in the thickest part of them by entering their protection….and see as far as one can focus, only trees while within them. Its a magical kind of place for a child, and one which I loved dearly…..for I grew up in a small town, full of both small town friendlyness as well as farms and pine forests.
My father’s 75th birthday was Saturday and my brothers and I all drove in from our homes to be with our father and his wife for a great day together…..and a blessed time it was…..my father, the doctor, my brothers the mathematician and the attorney….and well, I guess my claim to fame is I married the indian chief. Not really, but I did marry a Cherokee Indian and perhaps that is the end of the phrase…doctor, lawyer, indian chief rhyme we played as children as we played jacks.
Miss Virginia, a truly one of a kind Southern belle, took me to her second home, to show me new finds and lovely changes…..if one is to have a stepmother, Miss Virginia does indeed make the industry proud. My father and she live a happy life together , my mother lost to us three years ago from cancer. I am thankful for my father’s happiness and a new family member to love, though not my mother, a new person to love all the same!
More tears fell from my face, perhaps from joy, other times privately from the loss which is returning to a home that is no longer the childhood experience I so knew, mothers and grandparents and nephew gone on to heaven, but it more an awareness that my history is rich, my life at times difficult, yet I am so blessed. I played our baby grand piano, songs from my mother’s playing, and sang as she would have if she had been alive…..and this too brought a knowingness that I am not in Kansas anymore Dorothy, but the new Oz, that which is my father’s life now, still in the home I grew up in, is a magical place of its own….though not the place of all answers perhaps it once was. The good thing about growing up and rearing children of your own, is indeed, when you choose to…..is that you can fully appreciate all that is required to be an adult….its hardships, its trials, and its demanding of love……but most of all you become thankful for all your own family did, in their own way, right or wrong, to make you your best.
God is good….my children have absolutely so impressed me with their kindness to me on trips and their mature behavior…and we’re thankful to return home safely and in our own home…..where we’re creating a joyful place of our own!
