Going home but only in memory

Grandpa in front of his new house in 1954.

Sometimes memory triggers are unpredictable. Mimi of “French Kitchen in America” started a post with a recipe, then ended with a wonderful evocation of the neighborhood in which she grew up.

She and her husband sold her grandmother’s house to a young family. “My heart tightens when I pass the house,” she said.

I understand the feeling. I can never, ever drive past my grandparents’ farmstead without my throat tightening, without longing to “go home”. Home to the “home place”.

My grandparents built their house on that land in 1954.

I cried when my grandmother sold it in the late 1980s.

In memory, I can walk through every room in the house and outbuildings, but I will never walk in the real buildings again. That thought saddens me. However, they are probably so changed by now that I wouldn’t want to walk there.

After I read Mimi’s post, I looked through a stack of old family photos, searching for pictures of the farmstead. I thought I would write one post about the place, but too many memories popped up to write just one.