Bea V. Larsen . . . .Commentaries |
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Bea V. Larsen is a Senior Mediator at the Center for Resolution of Disputes in |
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Going Home Again This entry was posted on 8/9/2008 9:50 AM and is filed under Personally Speaking. I have a decision to make: should I revisit the past, or stay away from the scene of love now lost? For I’ve been invited to join some former neighbors at a progressive potluck supper, moving from house to house on the street where Len and I lived for over forty years, and raised our family. After leaving eight years ago, we returned a few times for holiday picnics, but now if I go, I go alone. And, it turns out, the first house on the schedule is our old home. A wave of sadness washes over me when I imagine walking up the porch steps and over the threshold. Hearing the catch in my voice as I pose my question, friends urge me not to go. Aware of my misgivings, they talk of their own past losses and those they know are yet to come, empathizing with my reluctance to give up the distance already gained from my sorrow. But my thoughts become more clear as they probe and express their concern, and as we talk, my need to overcome this foreboding actually strengthens. The beauty of these conversations, even if tearful, is meeting the feelings head on, whereas for the past week, I put them away each time they surfaced, unexamined, and simply decided not to go. Now I wonder. Perhaps I can go, and be rewarded in some important way. Facing my unease, not it’s victim, nor later to live with regret. For once my old front door opens, and I am standing in the entryway, I imagine I will be enveloped in the memory of the many reunions held in that very spot, when I welcomed Len’s return from days or weeks away on a geologic or fishing trip. Those were such sweet moments, when a sensual embrace renewed so much past loving. I don’t think the changes made by the new owner of our home will keep me from visualizing the favored chair in which Len so often sat reading or listening to music, gazing into the near distance, lost in private thoughts that might, or might not, later be shared. Or my very early morning times in that same chair, either preparing for a challenging work day ahead, or having wakened in the pre-dawn hours to think through and push aside a cloud of unhappiness. I‘ll approach the wall that held the old upright piano at which our three year old son stood and picked out tunes with perfect pitch, the first signal of his future as a gifted musician. The location of the kitchen sink will surely be the same, beneath the window view of the ravine-like back yard, yielding the memory of the giant rope swing that evoked Tarzan-like yelps, and drew neighborhood children in droves. And I’ll walk out to the sun porch where my eighty-nine year old mother spent her last few weeks, cared for so tenderly by Len, then retired. The hard times, hours of loneliness, worry or discord, might also hang in the air, experienced most often as silence rather than spoken aloud in our home, only later to become food for thought and reconciliation. That too was part of the fabric of our family. Sooner or later grief sweeps into all our lives. For now, my expectation is that revisiting old memories, while embraced by friendships of the present, will trump the pain of loss, perhaps even enrich past joys. CommentsDisplay comments as (Linear | Threaded)
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