Friday, December 18, 2009

Kaitlin Gets Married

First came the lingerie party...

My social work girls
And the wedding
she was gorgeous




Home

Growing up as a preacher's kid, we moved a lot. It had its advantages and disadvantages but one of those disadvantages was that I really don't know where to call "home." So if it's where the heart is, add that it's where some of the best days of childhood where spent, a little house off of France Xing, is my favorite place in the whole world. Today it no longer houses my Grandma, Uncle, Aunt, and Cousin, and I have to admit that I'm still a bit bitter about the fact that life doesn't always work out the way it should. I've been in the house once since my Grandma died and it was incredibly hard. But for this second time since then, I only saw the outside of the house and the feelings that it left me with are indescribable.

France is my mother's maiden name and so since my uncle built the house and owned the land, what better name could there have been?


The memory is stamped into my mind as plain as day. We'd take long, unbearable trips from wherever we happened to be living at the time and finally we'd turn down this road. I can still hear the crunch of the gravel under the tires and feel my little body shaking with excitement. Just like clockwork, I could hardly breath. I was at Grandmas!
Drive down around the back, step over our hand prints that Uncle Kit had helped us put in when he laid the concrete, and Grandma would be there at the window, waiting for us, usually with Ramen for the kids, and vegetable soup for the grown ups. Open up the pantry and of course my favorite foods were always there.

That night Jaclyn and I would get tucked in on the couches by Grandma, and fall asleep to the sound of her clock while she sat in her chair and watched over us. You'd want to wake up early, earlier than anybody else, because that meant you'd get the spot on the coveted stool, right next to Grandma, making biscuits that will never be matched.

The stories could be endless, but that tree right in front of the house, I'll never forget the day it got hit by lighting. We were all in the bathroom having fun with bathtub toys when it happened. The next day my cousin Lindsey and I sat among its broken limbs, hidden from view, as we watched family members taking things from my Grandma's house. Grandma had decided to start giving things away and I couldn't decide who to be more angry at; her or the people who were actually taking her up on it. You couldn't get rid of the things in grandma's house! Everything was always in exactly the right place. She let me pick out a little girl figurine that sat on her mantle above the dining room table. It's one of my favorite possessions. But today that tree is still there and you'd never know that it once hid two little girls as they watched a part of them being taken away and not understanding why it had to be so.

This is the woman in the mountain. Can you see her? Funny how I was afraid she might be gone. But she still lies there, looking up at the sky. Lucky me.


This view is one of my favorites. I don't know why. Maybe it's just because it's my favorite gravel road on earth. Maybe it's because those trees were my playmates. Everything in me wanted to shrink down and become a little girl again. I don't think I have ever been so happy as those days spent tromping around the property with my cousin Lindsey. Our imaginations would run wild which meant the things we could be, were endless. My heart craved those days and I could hardly stand it. Odd that I could be so overwhelmingly in love with a plot of land. I wanted to stand there forever. But instead, that big girl that I have somehow become, got in the car, turned down this road, and drove back to where my uncle now lives. His house is still one of my favorite places on earth because it houses some incredible people, but my heart still aches for home.