Big Yellow Taxi

Well it's Monday again and we all know what that means...back to the grindstone!  I hope each of you enjoyed a little down time, I know my weekend gave me a much needed break.  You see, last Saturday was the three year anniversary of my father's death.  And although I know he's in a better place and no longer ill, those sorts of anniversaries always make me stop and reflect on how life used to be.

I recently had a friend who lost a family member and she shared with me the pain of not only losing that person, but also the pain of what might have been.  Things not resolved, missed opportunities, or harsh words exchanged.  Things we all deal with when someone we love leaves us.

That was the case with my own father.  We were very close, both geographically speaking and emotionally.  We were very much alike in many ways and for most of my life we had been as thick as thieves as my grandmother would have said.

After my mother's unexpected death things changed.  He met a woman who was not interested in him but in his money, and he fell for it hook, line, and sinker.  He was lonely, desperate in a way, and even though we tried to be everything for him, it wasn't enough.

When my mother was alive, we were like a Norman Rockwell painting.  Big family dinners at each holiday, a house filled with laughter, cousins playing, life was normal.  When my mother died, the glue that bound us together slowly dissolved, bit by bit, the crowd at the table got smaller.  And the information dissimenator (my mother) was no longer with us, so we all became a little less connected.

Ten months before his death, my father and I had words, things were said by both of us that needed to be said but should have never been said.  It was time, I had cracked and could not come to terms with how my father had become someone I didn't even recognize.  In my mind, he had chosen to walk away from everything he knew and loved for a perfect stranger.  The strange part is he made a choice, but we never asked him to.

Often times when families have problems, it seems like there is one person who bears the brunt, and I was the chosen one for some unknown reason.  Maybe it was because I look a lot like my mother, or maybe it was because I was the closest to my father in distance so he needed me out of the picture to pursue this relationship that he knew was toxic.  I'll never really know.

All I know is that it was a pain like no other, and one I hope to never inflict on my own children, but we can't predict the future any more than we can change the past can we? 

The years of stress, and ultimately not speaking to my father before he died (a choice I am still comfortable with today) came at a huge price.  I ended up with an adrenal gland and thyroid that gave up the ghost in response to everything.  And I've spent the last 3 years just trying to get my once healthy body back to some sort of level playing field again.

It's getting there, and I'm much better now.  But the point of my story isn't about woe is me, it's not about hanging on to the anger, the hurt, or even the pain.  It's about letting other people know that life is full of challenging relationships, difficult times, and hard decisions.  And it's what we do when faced with all of those things that really matters.

Although it's sometimes hard to bare your soul, sometimes it is that very act that frees us, and it can sometimes even help someone else in the process.

I like to say that my life went from Norman Rockwell to Jerry Springer in just 6 months time.  And although I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, the experience made me much stronger, more in touch with who I am and able to face almost anything and know I will come out on the other side a better person than I was the day before.

Life is full of choices, easy ones and tough ones, happy ones and sad ones, but the fact remains that they are our choices to make.  I have chosen to be happy, to move forward, and to remember the good instead of the bad.

If life is a sum of it's parts, then I'm on the plus side and for that I am grateful.  You see, my father was a good man, and I was a good daughter.  The cabin in the photos above was something he built for all of his grandchildren.  My mother helped him and filled it with things as though it was her only home.  Birthday dinners were held there, mine included.  Sleepovers filled with giggles, lanterns, and a hot breakfast made on a woodstove happened there.

When I walk this property that once belonged to my grandparents, I am transported back in time, back to when I was a child, learning to drive a tractor, picking vegetables in the garden, feeding the horses sugar cubes pilfered from church each Sunday...I think God would have approved!

It's a place where old machinery is never discarded but stacked in hopes of being useful again someday, to someone.

The carefully groomed fields which once had horses and cows roaming freely are now overgrown and a bit neglected.   We had to put a sign on the cabin and around the property line telling others to "Keep Out" and "No Trespassing!" 

Trails which used to be used to haul lumber and for hayrides in the snow now lay dormant and some are completely impassible.  And time waits for no one as the saying goes, with suburbia surrounding this once quiet place.

What you can't see in these pictures is how strip malls ring this beautiful property, and you can't hear the hustle and bustle of people living there in spite of its history.  Tranquility has given way to car noise and people now outnumber the deer, squirrels, and birds which once roamed the vast acreage that surrounded our little farm.

Yesterday, as I wandered around our farm, now owned by my siblings and myself, I realized that my grandfather wouldn't still be living there if he were alive.  He would have long since sold this land and moved to a place just like it, but way far out in the country, maybe even back in the Blue Ridge Mountains from which he came.

And I also realized that like this place, I had changed, that I too hadn't stood still and that I had moved on.  But like the giant oak trees that stand guard on this plot of land, a part of it will always live inside me.  It's burned on my heart, carved into my memory, and part of what makes me...ME!

One day, like everything around it, it will be a strip mall, a restaurant, or a movie theater.  And like the song says "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you got till it's gone, they paved paradise and put up a parking lot."  But in my heart, it will never change!

To my friend, and you know who you are, I hope you find comfort for the memories of the bad times, and pure joy in those of great happiness.   Choose to live without regret...by choosing to live out loud!

(I used several Flora Bella Textures on all of the photos above, including Ethereal, Memory, and Attache all in warm)

I am in a musical mood these days, so here's another little song for you to enjoy...