I drove away looking in the rear
view mirror only to see the back of a dog’s head through a window made of
boxes. I saw the colors of the house,
dark peach with light orange-cicle trim, and I saw the leaves of the pecan tree
I used to climb as a little girl… and then it was gone. I suppose I was not expecting much when I
drove away that day. I knew the bustle
of the move would rob me of sentimental time, but I at least thought I would
have a better look in the rear view mirror.
I cursed. “Damn, Sarah, you
should have drove the other way. You
would have had a better view.” And with
my cursing I stopped at the stop sign at which I had stopped a thousand times
and turned right off of old N. Davis Drive for the last time. Childhood memories and identities left to
fallow in the fields of my youth.
Nostalgia is a funny thing. It can waken and trap our souls given its
dose. Too much of anything is a bad
thing. And when left to ferment in
nostalgia, one can get lost in a past that can never be reclaimed. My parents wanted to move out of my childhood
home 10 years ago when my sister and I left the house for college, but mom’s
job kept them rooted. For the past few
years my parents have been living in a house of stale memories, the occasional
new memories created during holiday visits.
It is for this reason, I cannot be too sad. My parents are thrilled to start a new
chapter in a new locale, yet admittedly I cannot help that my heart still hurts
as I drive away.
A few years ago I wrote a piece
about “falling in love with the land.” I
loved that small fragment of property on which my parents raised us. I formed my identity in that place. And as with all loves that come and go, they
are always a part of who you are and who you have become. I skinned my knees on that gravel drive when
I first learned to ride a bike. I
learned how to climb trees on the pecan in the side yard. I learned how to garden in that soil, and I
found God in that field on our property.
The memories are too numerous to count, and so I thought for now I would
recall just one.
When I moved back to Georgia for a
brief time from Tucson, I was more than eager to plant a garden. Having been deprived of the green luscious
vegetation of the Southeast for a year, I not only wanted to be outside in it,
but I wanted to create more of it. I was
ambitious. Dad and I plowed and planted
an eighth of an acre. Being novices we
overseeded and didn’t thin. The result
was a jungle of tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash. My folks fed the neighborhood that
summer. Dad took tomatoes to Ms.
Woodward next door, whose husband many years before had delivered tomatoes to
us. Mom took lemon cucumbers to her
hospital by the load, and the squash emerged like daylilies from the
field. However, I suppose it was not the
produce that I remember so fondly, but it was sitting in the garden that warm
summer morning soon after we had put the seeds in the ground. As I sat in the garden, Dad’s Motown tunes,
the same ones he used to play all those years working on the house, wafted over
from his workshop. The temperature that
day was perfect, and the dogs in the yard were playing. I was overwhelmed by a peace possibly we only
know at the most special moments in our lives and maybe again in heaven. Somehow the world was right, and I have never
felt so rooted and loved. I stayed in
that moment for a long while before I moved from my spot in the field, and I
will never forget that moment for the remainder of my life. I don’t doubt heaven will resemble its image
in my mind. It was a rare moment in
which heaven met earth.
And so with that I say “Good night
54 N. Davis Drive. Good night sweet dancing pines. Goodnight Buster, Aussie, Georgia, Baron,
Sabbath, Puzzle, and Oz – the Parsons’ dog legacies forever planted in that
earth. Good night skinned knees and
dreams of my youth. Good night home.” Until we meet again…
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