I have been saying goodbye to my family for 30 years. We would drive up from West Virginia once or twice a year to visit. We would see as much of my family as we could, always staying with my Mom and Dad. At first we stayed in the old farmhouse. I have no idea when it was built, but it was a place full of childhood memories. My grandmother and grandfather had moved in while my Dad was still a teenager (he just turned 80) It smelled of hay and the original knotty pine floors had never been replaced, so they were full of curves and bumps- the knots standing up from the rest of the floor in the most well worn places. My grandmother cooked on the wood stove in the kitchen there, and took flour for her biscuits from a large crock under the "trap door" in the counter by the sink. I remember that the counter was covered with shiny flowered linoleum, a cheap way to make things smooth and clean, I guess. The farm caught fire in 1990, and burned to the ground. It burned fast and hot, and there was little the fire men could do to save it.
After that we stayed in the mobile home my folks lived in while building their new home. It was a tight fit, the five of us and Mom and Dad in that mobile home. Mark and I got the pull out in the living room, and Lydia usually slept in a closet, above the built in drawers that were standard in mobile homes of that era. We had good times there, though. One summer the kids and I got to spend 6 weeks there with Mom and Dad, making daily trips to the beach at Long Lake. In the days before seat belt laws my sister in law with her three kids and me with mine would all pile into her Chevy- a hatchback of some kind, whose model name I cannot recall, and head to the lake to sit on a blanket and watch the kids take swimming lessons and play together. Good times.
After that it was the new house- a little roomier. The first time we stayed there, it wasn't quite finished. My brother Charles and his wife were there with toddling twins. It was special because we don't often see our Arkansas cousins, and it may have been the first time I had actually met Paige and Pam. Dad kept the upstairs bedrooms large in his new house so that he could accommodate his out of town family (read Mark, Jessie and all their kids.) We have made many memories in this home, too. We have had great games of croquet in the field, and many family dinners on the back porch Dad added on a few years after the house was built. We watched Mom grow ill and eventually die in this home, and when I go there today, I miss her every moment.
It was at this house my parents started a tradition. When we left, usually very early in the morning, our van full of sleepy children, and my heart full of melancholy over what I would miss while I was away, we would drive to the end of long the driveway and turn left on Rt. 302, which would bring us by the house again. Mom and Dad would still be there on the porch, summer heat or winter cold, standing in the light cast by the floodlight there, waving as we went by. That was always my last memory of them. I came to watch for them, usually through my tears, waving until we could see them no longer, blowing the horn in a farewell salute, despite the early hour.
Now that we live in New Hampshire, only a couple of hours from my Dad and my sister, who now lives with him, we are able to make the trip more often. It's nice to be close enough to be there for my Dad's birthday celebration and other family events. We don't have to leave quite so early in the morning, but when we do leave, we still glance at the house as we pass on Rt. 302, and my Dad and sister are still there, waving goodbye as we start our journey.
After that we stayed in the mobile home my folks lived in while building their new home. It was a tight fit, the five of us and Mom and Dad in that mobile home. Mark and I got the pull out in the living room, and Lydia usually slept in a closet, above the built in drawers that were standard in mobile homes of that era. We had good times there, though. One summer the kids and I got to spend 6 weeks there with Mom and Dad, making daily trips to the beach at Long Lake. In the days before seat belt laws my sister in law with her three kids and me with mine would all pile into her Chevy- a hatchback of some kind, whose model name I cannot recall, and head to the lake to sit on a blanket and watch the kids take swimming lessons and play together. Good times.
After that it was the new house- a little roomier. The first time we stayed there, it wasn't quite finished. My brother Charles and his wife were there with toddling twins. It was special because we don't often see our Arkansas cousins, and it may have been the first time I had actually met Paige and Pam. Dad kept the upstairs bedrooms large in his new house so that he could accommodate his out of town family (read Mark, Jessie and all their kids.) We have made many memories in this home, too. We have had great games of croquet in the field, and many family dinners on the back porch Dad added on a few years after the house was built. We watched Mom grow ill and eventually die in this home, and when I go there today, I miss her every moment.
It was at this house my parents started a tradition. When we left, usually very early in the morning, our van full of sleepy children, and my heart full of melancholy over what I would miss while I was away, we would drive to the end of long the driveway and turn left on Rt. 302, which would bring us by the house again. Mom and Dad would still be there on the porch, summer heat or winter cold, standing in the light cast by the floodlight there, waving as we went by. That was always my last memory of them. I came to watch for them, usually through my tears, waving until we could see them no longer, blowing the horn in a farewell salute, despite the early hour.
Now that we live in New Hampshire, only a couple of hours from my Dad and my sister, who now lives with him, we are able to make the trip more often. It's nice to be close enough to be there for my Dad's birthday celebration and other family events. We don't have to leave quite so early in the morning, but when we do leave, we still glance at the house as we pass on Rt. 302, and my Dad and sister are still there, waving goodbye as we start our journey.
