Take Me Back

     Today, I saw the most lovely picture of dogwood blooms.  Instantly, my heart ached to sit and talk with my beautiful grandparents.  For so many years, the biggest dogwood I’ve seen grew in their front yard.  So many times, I sat in its branches looking over at the nests built in the big birdhouse across the yard.  I can clearly see the big snowball bushes and cement planters around the porch and smell the scent of biscuits, gravy, fried apples, and coffee drifting from the kitchen.  It’s funny how things take you back. 

     I can hardly remember a day growing up without spending some, if not most, of my days with my grandparents.  No doubt, they tired of it.  I literally remember sitting against the wall outside the bathroom while my hard-working grandmother bathed and patiently answered my questions and listened to my stories through the door.  And there were so many walks along the railroad tracks with Papaw, kicking rocks and listening to stories of his childhood. I could never remember a specific one.  They all run together in my mind, all rolled into one big memory, one existence, one life that seems so long ago…but still, so much like yesterday that I can feel the hem of Mamaw’s robe and smell Papaw’s Old Spice aftershave and tobacco.  I would very much like to go back…but only if I could take my husband and girls with me.  Everyone should see and hear memories as sweet as the ones afforded me.  Memories my family before me worked and suffered to hand down, memories that cost so much.

     Now, before you picture two little old people holding hands in rockers, you need to realize my Mamaw also was a drag racer in her younger days (literally) and my Papaw drove a street bike.  Papaw would fight a buzz saw, and I have a sneaking suspicion Mamaw would have had his back.  They were no pansies.  They were daring.  They were hard-working, fight for who you love Americans who endured much pain and heartache all throughout their lives. But what I love most is that they were real, and that I was privileged to know them and be loved by them.        

     There is so much more to tell!  One day, I want to write a book about my heritage.  One day, I want to devote more time to writing.  It may never happen, I know, but something about writing frees me.  So, when given the chance, I’m going to write.  It will doubtless be sporadic and riddled with nonsense and mush.  So be it.  That just makes it that much more real, doesn’t it?  Isn’t life that way?  Up one day, down the next?  I’ve decided to not let the down keep me down, to not let the sadness or disappointments silence me, to be real for everyone to see.  Because, who am I kidding?  Everybody sees it anyway.  Now, they’ll just see it in writing.  And just maybe, someday I’ll have a grandson or granddaughter who reads of precious time spent with a real grandmother.  Or maybe, one day I’ll wake up ready to give in to the cruel parts and people of life again, and realize that life is much more that what I’m thinking.  Maybe seeing it in writing is all that will be able to remind me that my life was real.  Perhaps, when I go through another time of not feeling significant, that maybe I haven’t even been real, a scribbled page will take me back…and remind me that I have lived a daring life.