Sunday, July 12, 2020

No Place Like Home

I’m sitting alone on my deck on this hot June evening as the sun fades and the forest crackles with cicadas, crickets and other creatures of the night, and I’m reminiscing about the wonderful occasions that brought family and friends together in this home over the past 32 years, and the cherished memories that are part of our family history. Soon I will move away and start a new life elsewhere, but tonight countless memories are dancing in my mind’s eye. I see my daughter, Emma, bright-eyed and smiling, hitting a Piñata with her friends on her 7th birthday. I see my son, Jaret, sitting on the living room floor, tearing open a Christmas present (Pokémon) and the joy alighting across his sleepy face. I see my late wife, Lisa, garnishing a leg of lamb (rosemary, from her garden) for our neighbours and seeing the love and pride in her eyes as our guests oohed and awed over her culinary magic. I see a Saturday in April when Mom visited with an armful of goodies and feeling happy to spend an afternoon with her as our children bounced around and tired themselves out. I see my Dad sitting on the deck with his body hunched and his fists curled on that fateful Sunday afternoon (he passed away at his home from ALS that night). I see kids’ birthday parties, Easter weekends, Christmases, lavish dinners, movie nights, lazy nights, nights of single malt scotch, paper routes, Halloween costumes, kitchen renovations, VCRs, Dr. Seuss books, stuffed animal cushions, Lego bricks, impromptu BBQs, and sleepovers - memories flood my brain and tears stream down my face as I realize how quickly a lifetime has passed and how fortunate I’ve been to have lived and raised a family here. Life is a gift; and it happens in the blink of an eye. One day you’re changing diapers and the next minute you’re helping your daughter move into residence at university. Yesterday Jaret is running around a poplar tree in the backyard, carefree and cackling with laughter, and today he is a young man working and living in Toronto, and that same poplar tree has grown tall and firm and stands as a symbol of permanence in a world that’s constantly changing. Our home was a centre of gravity, a place of laughter and tears, of growth and celebration, of nurturing and healing, of dreams and disappointments. It bristled with life, vitality, laughter, daily loads of laundry, meals sizzling on the stove and nightly bedtime stories. Where did those years go? What does it all mean? Does anything matter in the end? Today, my children having long since left the nest, this house stands silent and empty. I feel imprisoned by the past, and I don’t belong here anymore. I’ve had my time, and now another family will take up residence and create their own memories within these walls. ‘There’s no place like home,’ said Dorothy in The Wizard Of Oz,’ in one of the most poignant scenes in movie history. ‘There’s no place like home.’ Suddenly, she is transported from a nightmare back to her home in Kansas, safe and comforted by loved ones. Our home has been a special Kansas, too, a welcoming place where everyone, family, friends and strangers alike, felt loved and wanted. As I recall the past and contemplate my future, I realize that the saddest word in the English language is ‘goodbye,’ and we say it so casually to people and places all the time. As painful as it is, I must now say a bittersweet goodbye to the life that I knew, goodbye to a home that was and is no longer, a home that offered warmth and protection and whose memories will sustain my children and I for years to come and provide fond recollections to those who visited us. At the end of the day, we are all just passengers on this strange, wonderful and exhilarating trip of life. We must be grateful for all that we have been given and, as we move on to new pastures, trust that life will unfold as it should. Honour the past, but don’t stop living for today or planning for tomorrow. Tonight, as the skies darken and a gentle breeze ruffles the maple trees, the past is brilliantly alive again and a kaleidoscope of memories come pouring in. There, just inside the patio door, I see Emma as a fifteen year-old, tapping out a song on the piano as the soft notes drift outside into the hot summer air; and over there - Jaret and I are playing mini sticks in the family room and he’s scored on me again while the smell of fried chicken and exotic spices wafts in from the kitchen. And over in the dining room, our extended family is seated for a Christmas feast as playful voices animate the room and we tear into our turkey and dressing. And there, somewhere over the rainbow, I see my dear Lisa smiling with the angels, proud of the beautiful memories she created in a home that she blessed with a lifetime of love, tenderness and joy. 



4 comments:

  1. Very well written, such a beautiful tribute to the memories you made in your home. On to a new chapter in your life, I wish you all the best Ross!!

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  2. Beautifully expressed! I too have many fond memories of your home, of Lisa and her excellent culinary skills; of yourself Ross, the good-natured host; your children, who have made you very proud of them; and most of all, your back enclosure where my wife and I spent so much time with the both of you. As you prepare to pull up stakes and move, may your many memories as you have shared remain with you forever! As a good friend of mine always says, 'the only constant in life is change'!

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  3. So beautifully captured Ross! You are such a great soul.

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  4. Oh Ross, this is sooooo wonderful. You certainly have a talent for painting a beautiful picture.Those small moments really do mean everything in the long run, don't they. I wish you so much happiness in your next adventure my friend. These memories live on in you - as you - forever.

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