I had a pretty productive day at the farm. The cabinets still had tons of food in them that had long ago gone out of date. It was one of those jobs I kept saying I’d get to, then there was always something more pressing to do. I’m amazed the place wasn’t infested with mice, but there wasn’t a single sign. My cousin dropped off some contractors bags for me and I filled two of them only half full and one I can’t even lift. I’ll have to use another bag and divvy up the goods so I can haul it out.

Once that was finished, I moved upstairs. There’s still quite a lot of my clothes up there and several boxes that need sorting through. When I got one of the closets empty, I noticed a box on the floor in the back. I lifted it out and put it on the bed. I found some pictures of my mom. There were several bags of things with names on an envelope tucked inside to tell the person who found them just who they were intended for. My Aunt Peeps was incredibly organized. I attribute that to never having had children. Nothing was EVER messy or out of place!

I noticed a cloth near the bottom with embroidery on it. I lifted the bags out of the way, and there…wrapped ever so carefully…was the folded flag that draped my Uncle Sonny’s casket. He was killed in 1955 in Germany. His plane crashed during a routine training mission. It was a loss that changed everyone and everything in the family from that date forward. There were some papers, a letter that accompanied his personal effects home, and some odds and ends. I didn’t dig further. But I did pick up that flag, and held it close to my heart, as I am sure my grandma did on that sad, sad day so long ago.

I tucked everything back safely in the box and set it aside. By this time, it was getting time to eat a late lunch, early supper. I took my meal to Grandma’s chair and sat looking out the window at the view she cherished. Suddenly, I heard something. I picked up my phone and quietly went out on the porch to listen. There it was again…one of the Barred Owls that woke me up in the middle of the night was calling in the middle of the day. (Watch the VIDEO here.) They do that when they sense something encroaching on their turf…especially when they’re nesting. In this case, it was probably a Great Horned Owl. These two breeds dislike each other and clear out when visited.

I brought my lunch out on the porch and listened while the rain pattered on the roof. The noise was amazingly joyful and it lifted my heart. I’ve done remarkably well not crying over the loss of the farm. That is, until Wednesday night when the rain started. Ohhhh….I will miss that sound desperately. I texted Mr. FixIt. I told him I am going to need a substitute place to recharge and write…even if it’s on our own property. Like a She Shed. I asked him if he could put on a roof just like this one and he assured me he could.

It’s been easier today. As things are torn up and tossed, gathered and tucked away, and distributed here and there, the house seems less like Grandma’s house and more like a tired old building…long past its prime. It’s funny…when you take the rose colored classes off, the walls look a little grimy, the linoleum a little tired, the furnishings a little shabby. Water spots speckle the ceiling tiles from leaks long since fixed. Pictures that were strategically placed to cover holes in the plaster have been removed…exposing the evidence of a hammer missing the nail sometime in the past. The windows are filmy from years of gas heat and neglect. 

Dismantling the old homestead doesn’t dismantle the many wonderful memories me and my cousins share. One son and one daughter survive of the original six children and this was the actual home they lived in growing up. Grandma used to say, if it wasn’t for her dairy cow, her children would have starved to death during the depression. This ground saved them all, just as it saved me. In a totally different way, but it saved me just the same.

Sitting here with this old place, nurturing it as it prepares to leave us, is like sitting with an old friend who is preparing to make her transition to the great beyond. We say our goodbyes in our own way. Mine is making sure Grandma would be proud of the way I took care of it when I had the chance. She and I will rock on a porch in heaven one day, stringing beans, and talk of the place that was sheer heaven on earth to her. And to me.

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“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.””

Revelation 21:4 ESV