I just returned from a week long stay with my parents in St. Louis, where we finally had our long awaited family reunion that was postponed last summer. While the reunion might be considered the high point since it was the opportunity to catch up with family members I rarely see, the most treasured moments for me are the smaller, simpler ones.
My mom and dad have a deck on the back of their house that is its own little hideaway.
There are no stairs going up or down to it; it can only be accessed through two different sliding glass doors in the house. The deck is laden with all sorts of beautiful flower arrangements that my mom faithfully creates each year, and shaded by towering oaks that bring relief in the afternoon heat. There are cozy furniture groupings for conversations large and small, and outdoor lights and candles to keep those conversations going late into the evening.
We were blessed with uncharacteristically perfect weather the first few days we were there: blue sky, breezy, and mid 70 temps. We pretty much lived on the deck during that time! We lingered over morning coffee and lingered again over dessert after dinner.
Those moments were precious. We were on holy ground.
When the weather shifted, getting a little more humid and a lot more rainy, we moved into the sunroom, which my parents added to the house seven years ago, and has been their pride and joy ever since. There are windows all around to watch the leaves dance in the trees, while bright red cardinals perch in the branches. The sunroom is often the reading room at the beginning of the day: Dad with his newspaper, Mom with her devotions, and me and my sister Kim with whatever book we packed to bring on the trip. It also doubles as the game room, where we gather around the table with decks of cards, and games with catchy names like Qwirkle and Skyjo. It is a given that when we break out the games, an array of snacks accompanies them. Eat, play games, laugh, talk, and repeat.
More precious moments. Yet another experience of holy ground.
This visit was especially memorable because of the trip we took on Thursday morning to the farmhouse my mom grew up in. It was a short trip from the café where she treated me and my daughter, Angela to coffee and divine baked goods for breakfast. Driving up the gravel driveway, I felt like I was being transported back in time. I really don’t have many memories of the house because I was only four years old when my grandma sold it. My memories are related to all the pictures I’ve seen over the years, along with the stories that were told by my mom, aunts and uncles who grew up there.
Mom is the baby of seven children, and she lived in this house until she got married. The house currently serves as an office area and guest quarters for a Baptist church that was built on the piece of land my mom knew as the pasture. We knocked at the front door several times very loudly, but there was no answer. I peeked through the front window and could see the back of the winding staircase where my mom posed with her bridesmaids on her wedding day.
I got goosebumps. Such holy ground.
As we walked the grounds, Mom pointed out the location of the bedroom she shared with her three sisters. Unbeknownst to me, they had a ranch hand named Jack who helped with planting and harvesting, and he had a little nook in the house they referred to as “Jack’s stairs”. She recalled the times that one of her sisters would throw things out the window to land on one of her brothers below. We came upon the water pump they used outside, and the barn was remodeled good as new.
Listening to my 71 year old mother relive some of her childhood memories with her just out of high school granddaughter was something special. Talk about holy ground.
Even though I don’t have concrete memories of being a young child in that house, (though there are photos of me and my sister with some of our cousins in front of a gigantic Christmas tree in the living room!), the stories I’ve heard over the years came flooding back to me: my grandpa carrying my mom down that winding staircase on his back for breakfast in the morning, my grandma canning fruit and vegetables in the kitchen in stifling summer heat, with a big, box fan blowing in the window. My favorite story though, is the story of when my dad came to pick my mom up for their first date.
Being a “city boy”, he didn’t know that the family used only the back door to get in and out of the house, so when he rang the bell at the front door instead, that was the beginning of over 50 years of ribbing and teasing from his future sisters and brothers-in-law!
My grandma’s been gone for 32 years already, and I never even met my grandpa: he died of a heart attack four months before my parents got married. But neither one of them is a distant memory for me, because they have continued to be part of my life through the stories that my family keeps passing down through the generations.
Walking along that property with the woman who gave birth to me, alongside the young woman I gave birth to 18 years ago, is something I will never forget.
Indeed, we were on holy ground.
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