I visit my hometown each Memorial Day weekend. My parents are buried in the local cemetery along with Grandma Johnson and Uncle Harold, my dad s older brother who lived with Grandma. I drive around town after I decorate the graves and experience the strange feelings of never having lived there and yet never having left.
My childhood home is two doors south of the funeral home, a fact I often used to direct people to where I lived. I pull the car over to the curb across the street and sit for a while. The old wraparound porch has been restored and is lovely and welcoming again. If I let my memories take over,http://www.sjtotal.dk/rss.php?203-benfica, I can see Mom and Dad sitting on the porch swing in their shorty-pajamas,http://www.skateworld.com.au/rss.php?newcastle-14-15-home-coloccini-cheap-thailand-soccer-jersey.html, smoking cigarettes or eating popcorn on hot summer nights. My neighbor friends and I are in our large yard playing kick the can. I can feel the coolness of running barefoot in the grass.
A nest that was built by robins each spring on the top of a porch pillar still is there. A window halfway up on the opposite side of the house lets light into a favorite place. I used to curl up on the landing of the long staircase and read,http://www.jurtech.dk/Support.php?frankrig, escaping from the rest of the world.
Sheltering shade trees out front replace the ones that were toppled by a storm in the 1970s. In the backyard, a new wooden swing set is built where our rusty metal one sat for years,http://www.naturseife-gartetal.de/wp-title.php?Ligue-1-Frankreich/, and I am pleased that children are enjoying my home. It was near there where I buried my goldfish when it died.
The telephone pole with the basketball hoop is gone, but I can still hear the bouncing as Mom and Dad tried to develop both of their daughters into the athletes they had been, with little success. But the peony bushes still form a border for the yard. Red, white and pink blossoms are wide-open, and I know that if I were closer, the wonderful smell would still be familiar.
Mom would be so pleased with all that has been done to modernize the house s exterior while keeping the feel of the original old style,http://www.granto.no/mail.php?Billige-Juventus-Fotballdrakt-Borte-Draktsett-2015-16-Langermet.html. My eyes travel to the second floor windows of the bedroom that was once mine. I am embarrassed as I think about how I used to peek out at night to watch my older sister and her boyfriend share a good-night kiss.
A few years ago, when I saw that there was a For Sale sign in the yard, I had thought I would return and buy my home when I retired. But my practicality told me that it would not really be what I wanted.
A small, old brick house is my home now. I have lived in Guttenberg for 40 years,http://www.tilmanngrawe.com/wp-pass.php?fodboldtr%25C3%25B8jer-mand-201516-stoke-city-Fodbold-shirts-17_101, longer than the 22 I lived in Fayette. But each Memorial Day I continue to drive by, park my car across the street and observe,http://www.foto-gerd.de/wp-atom.php?damen-dortmund-ladies-trikots-c-3_52.html, both with melancholy and joy, realizing that life changes and goes on. I will be pleased that at least one child is living there now,http://www.lisacelebrant.com.au/fantversion.php?size-chart.html, creating memories that she does not yet realize will be created, and enjoying the love and warmth she surely finds inside my home.
Maybe as an adult, she, too,http://tsoegaard.dk/wp-plugins.php?fodboldtroejer/453-palermo/, will return to visit loved-ones in Grandview Cemetery on the hill south of town. Her car will slowly drive down King Street,http://www.foto-gerd.de/wp-searches.php?Zentral-Suedamerika/Club-America/, and pause. She will recall her childhood in the big house with the wraparound porch and peony bushes,http://purplefrogshopping.com/wp-searches.php?Maillot-Belgique-2014-2015-cbaaaagoa.asp, and she will feel as I do as she remembers the years in her childhood home.
Ellen Johnson is a retired from Clayton Ridge Schools where she taught third grade and kindergarten. Comments: ejohnson@alpinecom,http://www.pistolchick.com/wp-rdf.php?textile-adulte/4318-maillot-exterieur-belgique-wc-2014.html.net相关的主题文章：


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