Generations

   The weather here has officially turned into fall. After my morning coffee I drove to the trail and leaves were falling everywhere and sticking to the ground that was still wet from the rains during the night. I guess since the weather and clouds were questionable many people decided not to go running or walking so I was out there alone. It was really kind of peaceful and quiet, even despite having music being pumped through my headphones. I don’t even bother seeing if Lizzie wants to go with me anymore, as she always finds reasons to bail at the last minute. And for whatever reason this trail has become a solitary and thereputic thing for myself. I can breath and think. I genuinely come home to shower and feel more refreshed and awake afterwards. 

  Today during my walk I smelled someone using their fireplace or a wood burning stove and instantly my thoughts turned to my great grandmother and all the time I got to spend with her when we moved to Missouri. I guess she was the only grandmother I had any kind of relationship with. She lived just a few streets away from the house we lived in when we first moved here and I used to go over there every day after school and I would spend my weekends with her whenever I could. My own grand parents were so uptight and pretentious and made no effort to get to know me. My Grandma though, (mother of my grandfather) was so laid back and sassy and SHARP. Even when she died at 100 years old she had all her wits about her. Jokes and comments would come out of her mouth you would not expect a 98 year old woman to utter.Anyway, during cold weather she’d put wood in her fireplace/stove and we’d curl up in her recliners with hot chocolate for me and coffee for her and watch reruns of I Love Lucy into the wee hours of the morning. I can remember how warm and cozy her little house would get when she would start the fire and the smell of the wood as it burned. 

  I am sad that I lost the only link to my mother’s side of the family that I really gave a damn about. The holidays aren’t the same now that we don’t have her home to go to, her to go to. I wish as I had gotten older I hadn’t let life get in the way of my spending ample amounts of time with her. 

 Her home was the one place I felt safe and comfortable, though. She loved all of her children and her grandchildren (although we were particularly close and like one another) that you could feel her love the minute you walked in the door. Even before you got to her when you stepped in it’s like you were wrapped in a warm embrace. 

 I can’t think of a single place that makes me feel that way, like her and her home did. I drive by now and I see college guys living there and they have torn down her garden. Her rose bushes have all been weed-wacked away and there are beer cans on the front porch and torn up lawn furniture. I don’t even want to know what it looks like inside of that Once Upon A Time Haven.. 

 I wonder if they are even aware of the amazing woman who lived there before them. If they can sense her essence in that home. I imagine her ghost roaming around that little place scolding them about the beer cans on the front porch and the overgrown lawn. She used to snap her dish towel at my butt when she’d get on to me for some silly reason or another. Wagging her finger at me but her eyes smiling letting me know she wasn’t really mad…

I  didn’t want to end my walk…as I reached my car I was sad to lose the smell of burning wood and the see the falling leaves swirling all around me come to an end. But as I opened my door and got inside….and turned the key in the ignition I hoped that I would grow into an old woman just like her. Full of love and loyalty…and that I would have that same fire in my eyes and zest for life. And that someday my own grandchildren look upon and feel about me the way I do her.