It is hard to imagine that I just took a walk around my grandparents’ farm on Tuesday for one last time. I did, it’s true. My mom and uncle are closing on the farm on November first. I visited for the last time with my husband, daughter and parents.
It was much the same as it has been for the past several years; an empty house with a bad pipe system and an huge, musty odor. But it wasn’t the same as we strolled and I told my tales to my daughter, husband or whoever else would listen, again, for one last time.
During our tour of the house the phone rang. Don’t ask me why the house phone is still connected, it just is. I’m sure my mom and uncle have a very good reason for doing so but that’s not the point here. It rang and no one else was around to answer, so I did. I said hello a few times knowing, by the noise in the background, it was a telemarketer. The convo went a little something like this:
Me: Hello
Him: Hello, can I speak to Charles Moss please?
Me: Charles Moss has been dead for nine years.
Him: (pause) Damn! I’m sorry, Ma’am.
I hung up and laughed and told the story to my family.
But yeah, he is right. Damn.
And now I have to say good-bye…again and for all times, to this place that has been a part of my life for 54 years. There is no other place on earth that I have known and loved and had the ability to visit for 54 years.
I showed my peeps where I played on the back porch before the bathroom was installed.
I showed them where I sat on the bed and played paper dolls.
I showed them where we sat on the front porch swing, my brothers and I, and played the car game, where we each picked a color. If a car rode by that was your chosen color you got a point. If two cars coming in opposite directions met at just the exact spot in front of the house then no one scored. Hey, we were bored. In case you wondered, blue always won back in the day.
I showed them the hen house that stopped being used when I was a little girl, and the outhouse we used until I was a teen, when the indoor bathroom was installed.
I showed them where we played kickball in the backyard. Where the bases were, and the automatic out spot if you kicked the ball too hard. Hey, we were bored.
I showed them the side yard that was our football field. My uncle and I against my two brothers. I hated football…just saying.
I showed them the hill (oh, so small) where we had gone sledding one year when the snow stuck around long enough for us to make the 80 miles south trip to the farm. It was quite a hike from the house and I, unfortunately, peed my pants while awaiting the boys to tire and walk back. I ended up walking alone, in wet pants, scraping and chafing my legs.
I walked the lane one last time.
I sat on the porch where my grandma would sit and read the paper or the mail on warm summer days…one last time.
I backed out of the drive and looked at the house that will forever remain one on my favorite spots on this planet one last time.
I drove away one last time knowing again that it will never be the same.
Because that day was one last time.
Great story, It’s never easy to say good-bye but you will always have your memories.
Carrie recently posted…The Shark Navigator Lift-away Deluxe Review
Memories are great, I agree.
Very good story… And unfortunately I can relate. When my grandparents died and we sold their home in Shively. It was the only constant, where you knew exactly what to expect when you walked through the door… Wonderful memories I will treasure forever!
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I get exactly what you felt.
I’m so sorry you had to say goodbye! I too have a farm dear to me, luckily my cousins moved into the farmhouse so I can visit. But it is different still. Thanks for sharing! This was lovely!
That’s great that you can still visit, but I can see how it wouldn’t be the same.
Great piece! You know from several of my posts that I love my memories, but hate the changes. We usually go around to my two grandmas’ houses when we are in West Virginia. We can only peek over the hill at one grandma’s house. She lived in a gated community around a lake. And of course, they have changed the other home so it looks so different. But I can still remember visits at both places. I think it brings out the little girl in me to see these homes, and the memories are great. Thanks for sharing.
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I love those old memories. So cool that you walk around the lake. Funny how the places of our childhood never look the same, only in our mind’s eye.
As usual, I shed a few tears while reading one of your tales of the home I grew up in except for the first five and one-half years of my life. I relived every word and sobbed while looking at the pictures. Thanks for sharing your memories and helping me to cry just a little over the loss even though it probably won’t be my one last time.
Thanks for sharing your memories with me as we walked around the place together.
What a blessing to take your family and share those dear childhood memories. Have a good week, Linda
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It was amazing!