Farewell

Today I drove down roads I know so well that I find comfort in the pavement itself. For as long as I can remember, I've traversed these roads each winter and summer, always with excitement and comfort in the depths of my being. The roads, which have changed little over the two decades I've traveled them, are as familiar as the lines on the faces of the people they carry me toward. I venture along them through the green, rolling hills and low, rugged mountains of West Virginia to the home where my grandparents have lived throughout my lifetime.

My earliest memories of the roads are colored by incredible excitement. I remember riding on seemingly endless car trips knowing that Christmas awaited me at the end of the road. When I ran out of art projects and games to play in the car, I would fall asleep, but I always insisted that my parents wake me in time to go through the one tunnel that marked the highlight of the drive for me. Once we had passed through the tunnel, I'd wait impatiently for the moment when we pulled up to my grandparents house and tumbled out of our minivan into Grandmother and Grandaddy's waiting arms. Those were the holidays where my biggest concern was that my uncle would eat too slowly on Christmas morning and keep me from opening presents, when I was the youngest person in the house and delighted in charming everyone in the family. I thought the stairs down to the basement were the greatest toy ever invented and I loved to bounce stuffed animals and run Slinkies down the staircase, much to the chagrin of my safety-conscious parents.

The closing of the single tunnel on our route marked a new chapter in my journeys to the hills. I began to enjoy the drives through the hills in addition to the destination. I loved pointing out Christmas lights and singing carols in harmony with my family during the long car rides. I started to treasure the long drives with just my mother when we came in July to pick blueberries, singing along to Patsy Cline and discussing things I never expected to discuss with my mother. I became fascinated by the grandmother clock and fireplace that lent what I imagined to be southern grandeur to my grandparents house. Those were the years that I was finally old enough to spend a week at my grandparents' house each summer away from the rest of my family. Those summer weeks were filled with trips to the pool with Grandmother, golf lessons with Grandaddy, playing Scrabble and Battleship, watching Murder, She Wrote, and sitting on the porch playing bocce ball and watching the fireflies on warm summer nights.

As I got older, the house and the loving people in it became a refuge on long road trips and a place to ease my homesickness for the mountains after ASP summers came to a close. I could always count on a spectacular meal, love, and a cozy bed as I drove through on visits to colleges, grad. schools, and visits to friends. My visits became shorter, the time dearer. I learned to talk with my grandparents, to listen to their stories and hear the guidance and wisdom of their years.

Their house will in my mind be forever linked with memories of food. It is where enormous Christmas feasts of ham, turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, frozen salad, fudge, and pie were shared at tables crowded with relatives and punctuated by loud conversations. It is where I knew I was loved from the second I walked in because I could smell my grandmother's gifts made specially for me, favorites like potato casserole, tomato soup, buttercream jets, and lemon meringue pie. I spent countless hours at the kitchen table, chatting with family members, playing games, and enjoying Grandmother's love made tangible to my tastebuds.

I'm sitting now, looking out at the garden Grandaddy has tended for so many years, peaking at Grandmother tidying the kitchen after serving a delicious dinner, and trying to fathom saying goodbye to this place. It has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, a place that seemed never to change, even as I grew and transformed within it. I took for granted that this haven, the site of so many cherished memories, would always be here, exactly the same. I know, now, that it is changing. There is a sign in the front yard and many of my favorite things that usually sit around the house have disappeared into boxes. In a few months, the house will be emptied completely and I will return here no more. The cherished items and, more importantly, the beloved people who lived in the house will move somewhere else and I will have a new place to visit. Still, I grieve for the loss of this place, which is a sacred space for me.

Tomorrow I will drive away. I'll turn down the road and I may never return here again. I will tuck this house, this sacred place, into my heart and take it with me because I cannot bear to leave it behind.