today was my family reunion... it was a life/death/life day... for me so many things came full circle. aging relatives and the children of my younger cousins... gathered at the park just blocks from where i spent my early childhood. my grandfather was there.... without my grandmother.... she is in a home because of alzheimers. she was the glue for me in family situations for most of my life. we had a relationship and a connection that went beyond things like this. i missed her so much today... and i know grandpa did too.
i heard family stories and visited the graves of people i have never met and some i remember well. there is a cemetery less than a block from the trailer i lived in for the first 10 years of my life. these are the things i remember about that cemetery...
1. my dad taking me there and looking out over the hills... telling me i could see my grandparents house from there... at that time i didn't know, nor did he... that we would buy a plot of land next door and my parents would build the home i spent the rest of my childhood in...
2. in a fit of 3 year old anger.... packing a bag with my stuffed animals, a diaper, my toy watch and my pillow... "running away from home" and sleeping on a headstone only to wake in horror that i had lost my toy watch and come home crying...
3. my first kiss.... in the gazebo of that same cemetery... late one night with my highschool sweetheart... now the gazebo is marked "no loitering" ...
4. walking with my grandmother just a few years ago when she was in the early stages of alzheimers to that same gazebo... she was living in the nursing home adjacent to that cemetery then... and having her beg me not to take her back... saying they were mean to her there... and could we just go home
i miss very much the simplicity that was my childhood in that tiny town. as is true with much of my life... i spent those years plotting my escape instead of basking in the safety that surrounded me. instead i made a mad dash as fast and far as i could from there... only to recall the things later that were "just right"
as i rode with my parents back home... they talked about how they should buy their plot in that same cemetery... to plan for later... my grandfathers siblings... one now deceased... the others to that stage in life where you only see the joy it is to be living ... all talked to me... lovingly... as if to say thank you so much for understanding how important life is. and i do
i feel like i have experienced many life/death/life cycles already in my short existence on this planet. the last of which was one of the strongest. it's this push and pull that binds the universe together... the things left unsaid that are inherently understood. i think personally that my life's work has been to understand and dissect these things... that no one wants to discuss... to be a breathing mirror of the true nature of life.
when my grandmother started to get sick... i felt an even stronger obligation to carry on what it was in her that i loved. a childlike honesty in life.... in her 70s she was the "youngest" person i knew... and because i don't believe that souls die... but instead that you give a little bit of your soul to those around throughout your life... until you have given it all away and you die... i hold that life in me... and give pieces of her to the people in my own life. she is the reason i paint... i sing... i dance... the reason i smile
i heard family stories and visited the graves of people i have never met and some i remember well. there is a cemetery less than a block from the trailer i lived in for the first 10 years of my life. these are the things i remember about that cemetery...
1. my dad taking me there and looking out over the hills... telling me i could see my grandparents house from there... at that time i didn't know, nor did he... that we would buy a plot of land next door and my parents would build the home i spent the rest of my childhood in...
2. in a fit of 3 year old anger.... packing a bag with my stuffed animals, a diaper, my toy watch and my pillow... "running away from home" and sleeping on a headstone only to wake in horror that i had lost my toy watch and come home crying...
3. my first kiss.... in the gazebo of that same cemetery... late one night with my highschool sweetheart... now the gazebo is marked "no loitering" ...
4. walking with my grandmother just a few years ago when she was in the early stages of alzheimers to that same gazebo... she was living in the nursing home adjacent to that cemetery then... and having her beg me not to take her back... saying they were mean to her there... and could we just go home
i miss very much the simplicity that was my childhood in that tiny town. as is true with much of my life... i spent those years plotting my escape instead of basking in the safety that surrounded me. instead i made a mad dash as fast and far as i could from there... only to recall the things later that were "just right"
as i rode with my parents back home... they talked about how they should buy their plot in that same cemetery... to plan for later... my grandfathers siblings... one now deceased... the others to that stage in life where you only see the joy it is to be living ... all talked to me... lovingly... as if to say thank you so much for understanding how important life is. and i do
i feel like i have experienced many life/death/life cycles already in my short existence on this planet. the last of which was one of the strongest. it's this push and pull that binds the universe together... the things left unsaid that are inherently understood. i think personally that my life's work has been to understand and dissect these things... that no one wants to discuss... to be a breathing mirror of the true nature of life.
when my grandmother started to get sick... i felt an even stronger obligation to carry on what it was in her that i loved. a childlike honesty in life.... in her 70s she was the "youngest" person i knew... and because i don't believe that souls die... but instead that you give a little bit of your soul to those around throughout your life... until you have given it all away and you die... i hold that life in me... and give pieces of her to the people in my own life. she is the reason i paint... i sing... i dance... the reason i smile
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