Someone Else's Home

A house that once was, Illinois

The most difficult experience of going home to the source of one's beginning is realizing just how much home has changed. Where and when my life began was now someone else's home.

Traveling and living away from the hometown area meant that returning was more of a sadness. It seemed to me that while I have changed drastically, those places should have remained the same as if under a big glass dome, frozen in time.  The people I knew then should be the same ages, moving around the county while continuing those same bits of their lives as if I had never left.

In America farmland, houses and barns are made of wood, well made. They were homes for maybe three generations and then no longer occupied. The photos below are of those in Illinois, my home state. 

Family farms disappeared when cities held more jobs. Children who grew up in those farms moved away, leaving the houses empty. Empty houses fell down. Towns once busy and thriving failed when elderly died and their progeny traveled on.

It is inevitable that lives change, people find other opportunities. That would be me. But, in the places of those farms and homes, there are new homes and barns, just down the road. Their story is yet to be written.

Pike County, Illinois Courthouse. Stone masons had recently moved from England and settled in the county. Their skill built this building.

1895

1953

2019

Things change, but then things remain the same.

Wisdom from Sunshine

Philosophy talk

Yesterday I held a sick child*** for almost the whole day.  ‘Sunshine’ had been sick with fever and vomiting the night before, and was staying home from kindergarten.  She lay across my lap while we rocked, and I caressed her face and hair.  In my grandma kingdom, this was a great day.

released in 2009

We watched a selection of Disney movies, starting with “Dinosaurs”.  We have watched this movie many times, but I have never been plastered in the chair by a five-year old with a fever of 101 degrees.

Usually, when Sunshine and I watch a movie, she gives me a running commentary on the movie along with her own unique insights.  You would be amazed by the perspectives a kindergartner has about life and theology.

The plot is straight-forward:

  
A dinosaur egg miraculously escapes many brushes with crushing, ends up hatching in the tree occupied by a family of primates.  They adopt the adorable newly hatched dino and name him “Aladar”. Then the meteor strikes, blows almost all away (except..d) They run and manage to escape. After that, life is difficult, but Aladar (who is fortunately an herbivore) develops friendships and family. 

There are some universal truths conveyed in that movie.  Go with me on this:

Everyone needs to love and be loved.

Everyone needs to know they are not alone.

Everyone needs to make conscious decisions for good or evil.

Everyone needs to be believed in and encouraged.

Everyone can change and grow.

Everyone has the potential to learn and the capacity to give to others.

Everyone must take chances, to make ‘a leap of faith’.

Everyone needs to trust and believe in something bigger than themselves, something they cannot see.

Okay, these are not a profound revelations.  I have never evaluated a movie for universal elements before, and I was struck by the way the movie displayed these characteristics. 

Then we watched “Night at the Museum (has a dinosaur)”, and “Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure (no dinosaur)”.  We both nodded off before Tinkerbell was able to repair the moonstone.  

Dang.

***This is a repost from 2010. Sunshine was 5 then and is now 13. She still has a unique perspective on life and would sit on my lap if possible. 

Christmas Now! Then!

A tree in our old neighborhood. For 11 months of the year if was ugly, but at Christmas?
It was stunning.

You might think that this post is a tad premature, but there is a reason: I want to celebrate Christ's birth, listen to music, decorate with every bulb and garland I can find, and remember every Christmas possible. Christmas cannot wait and neither can I.

Taken from our Chicago hotel room
after my son's wedding

Waiting for Christmas is and has always been the most intense, insane experience of anticipation of all the year. 

Standing in front of the tree and being mesmerized by the lights is the disco ball of the season. Then there was the dancing around the tree. Shaking the presents and guessing their contents is always be part of the game.  The small train around the base wears itself out by the Big Day, only too happy to be packed away for next year’s new batteries and another chance to whistle.

(That was a few years ago, going into the sixth decade of life. Then my granddaughters informed me then that I have to move away from the tree.  It was their time to do the dancing.)

Moving ahead some years and I would be found with the other delights: baking some, fixing meals, cuddling a baby, and moving furniture around to accommodate our grandsons BJ and Jim. (then almost 1 year old baby brother).

BJ 5th birthday, June 26, 2017

Jim at 6 months, June 22, 2017

I was waiting for Christmas, slightly removed from the tree’s perimeter to allow tween girls and a five year-old in pajamas to enter into the thrall of the tree. And now there will only be two girls in their teens. Sweet wonderful girls who are Irish dancers will be there.Christmas starts as a spark of joy, and then fills me all up.  Christmas is here!  Christ came into the world as a human, to experience the human pain and suffering.  Christ was crucified, resurrected, and ascended into heaven.   Christ dwells within me daily, reminding me that I am part of His family. 
This year I will think about those boys in their own home, dancing around their tree. 

In a running park 

This a repost of 2010.  I liked it, and juggled some words about to post it again in 2017. Now, here in 2019, I post it again.

Why is this post going up in early November, you may ask.  Christmas 2016 my husband's family went on a cruise because Mom Kane had died in February and none of us wanted to be home, without her.

It wasn't Christmas for any of us, we acknowledged it then and now.  Now, each year since 2016 we gather in one home or another and talk about times with Mom and Dad, and the joy they brought to Christmas.

This year, 2019 my husband and I will dance up a storm around the tree with our teenage granddaughters, laughing about all the other dances of the past. WE will stop our dancing after a few minutes while they carry away the night.

YouTube: Flash Mob, 2010

Merry Christmas!