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Home and Heart
I walked through the house one more time, but this time I was ready to leave. I’m a look-forward kind of person. I love to plan, organize and imagine what something will be like in the future. When my husband and I were engaged, I planned our wedding, but I also planned our first home, a 2-bedroom student apartment. I actually drew a rough blueprint and sketched where each piece of collected furniture would go. My forward-thinking works another way too. When we had 5 children ranging in age from 3 to 12, my husband was offered a job out of state. Before we knew it was right to accept,…
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Loss Creates Space
My brother and I stand at the dresser I used as a child. It is covered with sewing notions. Things our mom used to patch levis, stitch quilts, and add badges to scout shirts. Things that were useful when she was around. My brother said: “It’s just a Chex tin, but I remember it from 40 years ago.” I look at the other tin, full of spools of thread and pins and buttons. It takes me to my mom. Actually everything in the house holds a memory of my mom, my dad or my childhood. Our dad’s death evokes our mom, who has been gone almost 13 years. I pick…
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Letting Go and Overgrown Rose Bushes
I pick up my dad’s Navy uniform. I feel the scratchy wool and see the contrast of white stars on dark blue. It’s heavier than it looks and I wonder how he managed in the Hawaiian humidity. I study a picture of him in uniform, standing on the shore in front of a Navy ship. He is looking at the camera. Full of the future. I’ve had lots of time to think about my dad and mom as my sister and I begin the work of condensing the contents of their lives into a single room. But that’s not entirely accurate because the contents will actually be spread across the…
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The Biology of Change
I’m in the car with my son, his wife and their daughter. They are moving from a place they love to a place they are meant to go. Almost everything is unknown. I am along to help with my granddaughter. Our drive takes us through a town where I spent 27 years. And my kids know I will savor the trip on Route 66 through my childhood. We pull off the highway. I direct them to the neighborhood where I grew up, but I miss the entrance. It looks so different. As we drive the tree-lined hill that leads to my home, time shifts to a summer day in the…
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Holes in the Sky
I listen to my son’s story of feeling his grandma near. He was alone. He was struggling with the language and culture in a foreign country. It was a difficult time for our family. She had been gone for 3 years. It’s not the first time I’ve heard the story. Hearing it still makes me cry. He shared the story at a family gathering last month, our first since her funeral. We’ve been together in small groups, but for various reasons, it’s been 18 years since our last family reunion. After eating one of my mom’s signature desserts, 34 of us sit close. We swap anecdotes, some funny, some poignant,…
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From Branch to Trunk
I wrap my wet hair in a towel after my morning workout. I hear the door close and Scott’s quick steps. I ask why he is back an hour and a half after leaving for work. I notice watermarks on his tie. Later I know they were caused by teardrops. Scott: “Here she is, Dad.” He hands me the phone and stands close, his arm around me. I hear my dad speak. Me: “What?”He tries again. I hear a solitary wail in the distance. The sound of grief. I sink onto the bench at the foot of the bed, and only then do I discern the wail rose from a place within me. …
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The Long Goodbye
Looking out the window, I squint from the glare of the airplane wing. The view of the runway gives way to unseasonably green hills then snow-covered mountaintops and fades into billowy white clouds. I feel nostalgic. Even though our entire family will be together next month, I mourn the loss of home base. We spent a quick weekend clearing our house. With the help of our local children and a friend (who has literally seen us through every challenge since we built our house), we deposited the final hard-to-decide-on items at Deseret Industries and storage. Gorgeous views from every room. That’s what I wrote in the home’s description, and it’s…
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A Dog’s Life
Scott picked up the leash and we walked out the door with Boomer like we had so many times before. Only this time we weren’t heading out to explore the city or to let Boomer stretch his legs. This time we were going to say goodbye. To him. Cancer. We’ve heard that diagnosis before – when medical tests found the cause of our 13-year-old son’s massive headache. This time the diagnosis was for our dog. We named him Boomer, a nod to Oklahoma, the place we raised our kids. The kids had begged and lobbied for another dog after Sundance. We told them to write a proposal detailing how this…
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Preface
I read some of Jen Hatmaker’s words last summer. “Sometimes you can connect a few dots and discover a pretty clear path toward vibrancy and possibility.” I thought about the dots that connect for me. My shelves are full of books I read as a child. I keep a list of books I’ve read beginning in high school. Once near the end of a book — Wallace Stegner’s Crossing to Safety — I had a sense of deja vu. I checked my list and saw I had read the book 14 years earlier. As a young mom, I’d slip into a book during stolen moments, promising myself I’d go to…
