Hold on to the Land and make a Connection

Thomas Wolfe wrote “You Can’t Go Home Again”, sadly that is so. My brother has moved to Louisiana and has placed his home on the market for sale. This is the land that I grew up on- I never knew of another home until I married and moved to my own home.

I grew up in a single wide trailer-it was purchased new by my parents and they made monthly payments of $78.00. It only had two bedrooms so my little sister and brother and I all shared a room. As we grew older, my parents knew we needed our own rooms so they built a whole house around the trailer- it did not even look like a trailer by the time they were finished. That old house saw lots of laughter, tears, milestones, holiday celebrations all of which created memories, some good and some bad but all my memories.

When my brother married my parents moved out to a smaller place on the property below my brother- my brother tore down the old house (that was sad) and built his own home on the same land. I understand that- what breaks my heart is that the land my family has owned for over 60 years will be sold to someone outside our family and I will no longer be able to go “home”. I understand the importance of owning the land- it is a precious thing and if you can hold on to it do so with all your might.

I love the land and working on the land makes me remember my grandparents most of all-they were connected to the land and it sustained them. They relied on the land for survival and it was a faithful servant. This I did not understand when I was young, and how I wish I could have…I would have sat at my grandparents feet and absorbed all the secrets to tending the land, but youth does not allow for such wisdom only the passing of time can beg for such.

In the past few years I have yearned to grow my own garden and last year I was very successful in “making a garden”. I cannot explain to you how wonderful that was to put tiny seeds into the ground and watch them grow and produce food. So many evenings, I would go out to my garden and harvest the very food I would prepare for dinner. My little 4 year old planted watermelon and pumpkin seeds and you can only imagine the look on his face the first time he saw his effort producing the orange and green beauties.

We had a friend come over on Saturday and turn our soil-the smell of that fresh dirt pulled the memories from my mind –memories of my grandparents, parents, children-connecting me to the land.