What remains

It's been too long since my last entry, however, my posts were getting too melancholy, and frankly, so was I. The new year has brought renewed hope and a rose color to my glasses.

Christmas. It came and went this year with lots of snow, heavy heart, and family drama. I know, this is already sounding morose, but I need to write about it, because it all has to do with the return of joy and appreciation for those lost.

My gift this year was wrapped a little differently. First of all, I didn't find it sitting under the tree. And the wrapping paper was made of cool crisp Christmas air, embellished with bright white winter stars. A translucent delicate ribbon with sparkly snow crystals was neatly wrapped around my gift and as I held it the breeze swept it up to tickle my nose. It was gorgeous and magical. As I opened it up my senses soared, my head swam in a pool of childhood memories. You see, this year I had asked Sean for a walk. Quite literally, a walk down memory lane. It was the only way I could think of to feel close with Dad this Christmas.

So, on Chritsmas Day, we loaded our 2 dogs into Ruby, our Subaru, and drove to my old elementary school where we parked the car and opened my present. We walked home, to my childhood home, where for a moment it felt like my mom and dad would be waiting for me to arrive. We set out towards 224 34th Street. We followed my old route that I had taken so many times as a child, past the geo dome home that was all the talk when they built it in the 70's, past Steve Knapp's house and the old dirt entrance to the creek where I first got nettles, now a cement embuttment.

We wove our way through new neighborhoods that used to be playgrounds of cornfields, and then suddenly we were at the end of my street. We took a left and I reflected on all the families that used to live there; the Temmes, the Peaches, the Rodishes, and Zimmermans. Past the Smith's where dad and I presented the drum we had made together for Indian Princesses. I, Running Fawn, he, Big Buck. Past the Sheebles, the Schaeffers, the Sullivans, and Wrights. The Teifentollers, the Corbetts and Weidmans, and of course, we lived next door to the Jones', seriously.

It was a new development when we moved there in 1973. All the newly built homes were soon filled with young families and lots of kids. We created a strong community and commenced growing up together, young parnents and kids alike. The kids rode the school bus together, played in the streets until the street lights came on, decorated bikes with streamers and rode in the neighborhood Fourth of July parade. Andrea Jones always won first prize, I always runner-up. We knew everyone here. My parents hosted bridge parties and we had block parties together and made homemade ice cream. An idyllic place to grow up. It was the burbs, but the backdrop was cornfields, railroad tracks, and a creek that ran perpendicular for miles at the end of the street. I spent hours down at that creek, wading through the water, trying to catch crawdads and making boats out of leaves and sticks, racing them to see which one the fastest. I wrote my first poems there in a field of purple flowers.

Once we we arrived at my house we stopped. I stood there facing my front yard where I spent hours lying in the summer grass looking at the blue sky picking out cloud animals. Where Dad, the first year after the divorce, had presented my first ten speed bike, a yellow free spirit, that would replace the pink banana seated Strawberry Sizzler my parents had given me for Chrsitmas 28 years ago. I noticed how much the trees had grown, and that our old grape vines had been torn down. My dad had made a fence for them to climb on. My mom could always made the best grape jam out of those green grapes. Heather Wright and I tried our best to make wine out of those sour grapes in an old washing tub with our grubby little summer bare feet after watching a rerun of I love Lucy, you know which episode I'm referring to. We had raspberries and a strawberry patch, all gone now.

The swing set out back that dad put up, gone. Our basketball court that dad had created so we could practice our shot, gone. The clamatis vine growing on the rod iron fence by the entry way where I would do "he loves me, he loves me nots" until mom would yell at me to not pick ALL the flowers, gone. All the families that had lived there and their children that had grown up with me had moved on as well.

I looked up our street, a long gentle slope that was the length of 3 normal city blocks, and closed my eyes. It's night time and cold, there's a lot of commotion with all the neighbor kids clamoring around. You can hear squeals of delight and yelps of sibling rivalry, as the entire street is filled with sleds. Dad and I are about to go down together on our old wooden radio flyer. He's wearing a navy blue down jacket with a nylon shell. We are face down on our bellies, he on the sled, me on top of him hanging on for dear life. I can feel the slippery way his jacket felt between my mittens in my Incredible Hulk hold. A scarf my mother crocheted is wrapped around my face and the steam from my breath has made the yarn wet. I feel so safe. I feel so loved. I can hear my dad laugh as we slide. The tears fall down my cheeks and I open my eyes.

Sean put his arm around me and we kept walking. We went all the way to the top of our street and around the block back by the creek. He asked if I wanted to walk down by the tracks. I had already decided we would.

As a kid, the railroad tracks were really a hiking trail that we had to share with the trains. Which was ok by me. You learned in short order who had the right of way and to check for approaching trains by listening to the rail. It's a wonder no train ever derailed from all the spikes us tikes had stolen from the tracks. Sean and I walked along and I thought about Heather and all the sack lunches we had packed for our long adventures out to the The Bridge. We would talk about boys, of course, and dream about the one we would marry some day. I looked up to my left and kissed Sean on the cheek. I didn't have to wonder anymore about who my dream boat would be. I smiled and then chuckled a little at the thought of all those silly conversations, and because it's funny how life comes full circle.

I ran down off the tracks to the creek, and called out to Sean to follow. I showed him one of the best bends in the creek, told him how much I loved it down there. I hadn't been there for years, at least not physically. I had travelled there so many times in my mind and my dreams. I felt dad with me walking those tracks, and I'm relieved he knew Sean and loved him. I'm thankful for all our good-byes.


The sky is full of Christmas light, the sun is setting, almost gone now. And I know now that even though all the grapevines are gone, and the fireman sticker in my bedroom window is gone, and that, unbelievably, my hero, is gone, that my chest of treasured memories of him and my childhood will always remain.