This Place

September 29 was my grandma’s birthday. She would have been 97. I went to the farm with my parents that day, the farm where she and my grandfather lived for my entire life. This place…

This house, it holds a lot of memories for me, although now it is an empty shell. The house has been emptied of all it’s contents for about a year now. The farm has been sold and there are only a few short weeks left for me to visit. This was one of my last times here. It is the same in so many ways, but so very different too.

I took picture after picture that day,  though they don’t even come close to the photographs eternally imprinted on my heart. This was truly one of my favorite places on earth, and the images of times spent here with my grandparents are never far from my mind.

This place. This sign. This corner in the world.

This road. This lane led to the gates to my grandparents’ farmland and pastures . We would ride in the back of my grandfather’s pick-up truck to go feed the cattle, as kids, my brothers and I. One of my favorite childhood memories…the smell of the grain in the burlap bags that we sat on as we bumpily rode to the field, the odor of the many cow pies as we drove to the feeding troughs, and my grandfather doing his cattle call.

This barn. I stood in the barn that housed the cows back in the day, just one or two as best as I remember, and took this shot. Mostly this barn was used for storage, like parking the tractor. The barn in the distance was/is the tobacco barn. The land is being leased by a tobacco farmer, politically incorrect, I know, but that’s how my grandfather made his living back in the day, and some still do.

No hate mail please. It’s not my tobacco. I just took a pic of the stuff. It brought back memories of my grandfather.

This pencil sharpener, it may very well be as old as I am. It hung in this exact spot, by the back door since the beginning of time. A little worse for wear as evidenced by the electric tape. I loved this pencil sharpener! I would purposely break the lead of every pencil I could get my hands on just to turn that handle. Simple pleasures of a child.

This door. Those curtains were homemade by my grandma. I’m not sure how old they are and I know they have seen better days, but they speak to my heart, even in this house that has stood empty for so many years, in the ragged, haphazard way they now hang.

This staircase. These are the stairs that lead to a magical place for me in my childhood. Up in the “long room” were all of my mom’s and uncle’s long-ago, played-with toys. I loved that room! I knew what that room held and what I wanted even before I went up there. Sometimes I came down empty-handed, I just simply felt the need to be in that room, to breathe in all the old familiar things in the place I love.

My grandmother’s dressing room/closet was also at the top of those stairs. In that room I found hours of enjoyment as I went through her collection of shoes and purses, which I was allowed to use in my make-believe, dress-up world.

I took many more pictures that day. I won’t post them all here. They are just pictures of empty rooms that have seen better days, and hosted special times in years gone by.

We all have our favorite childhood memories. Many of mine took place at my grandparents’ farm. I know it is time to say good-bye to the actual place, or nearly time to do so. I will never forget, with or without my photos. But I sure am glad I have them.

This place.