Home- A Cherished Memory

Home  
By: John McCane

                Home for many people can mean many things. For me, it has always represented the place and time of my youth. It is not uncommon for people to harken back to this era in their lives and mourn the movement of time. It must be more difficult if, like me, childhood was particularly idyllic. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t look back fondly and mournfully on those days spent in a huge, old red brick house that sat on a beautiful green plot at the edge of a tiny village that would never grow any bigger. We were neither particularly wealthy, nor were we particularly poor. My bedroom window view changed as I grew and flitted between different bedrooms in that ancient house. From my earliest memory, a bright green field that stretched into forever, the snow-covered road that sloped down toward a distant white farmhouse that glowed in golden light during the dark winters, and finally moving to a room with the view of a reflective pond the stretched out to the end of the property surrounded by thick reeds and willow trees.   

                Between the bedrooms and viewpoints, the sound of my mother pushing open a creaking door to yell up to my sister and I, "John, Julia, it's time to wake up," was always the constant throughout each day. The smell of a hot breakfast and the sounds of my mother cooking drifting up the stairwell helped to arouse my senses in the morning. Each of us has memories like this, and most of us dream of returning somehow to our youthful bodies and returning to that time hazy with memories even for a moment.   

                My sister and I would race down the stairs after the sweet scent of pancakes and jostled against each other to reach the bathroom first; my sister usually the winner. My father would just be finishing up and getting ready to leave for work as he had gotten up far earlier than we. I would sit in the warm sun of our breakfast nook, looking out across that reflective pond. Depending on the season, a different variety of birds would be singing, and the scenery would change with the passage of winter or summer, but generally, change was slow where I grew up. The same families lived in the same houses for generations, and farms passed from father to children, and time would go on in an endless march. At least, that is how my childlike understanding saw the cycle of life.  
                These warm, bright mornings are one of my happiest places to return in my mind's eye. Life was simple and without regret. People often say that we do not know we are genuinely happy until the day that the tides turn, and we realize we have lost something fundamental. That is why, as we age and understand that life is not always as friendly as we would like, we cloak ourselves in cherished memories that we can never return to as an armor that will help us to remember the good in the world; a light for us to follow in the darkness.  

                I look at my parents and even my grandparents and wonder what they must be missing. What memory they cling to and wish they could return, and what memory has helped them remember that good still exists in the world. I realize now, after much of what made my childhood so idyllic, has begun to change that the simple view I had of life then was never meant for me. All I want is to be among those forested hills of my youth, and life seems to pull me further and further afield. The family members present in those cherished times begin to age and eventually leave us to be the singular stewards of our own memories. When we meet that inevitable end, the light of that golden time will go out forever. Unless I think, heaven is merely waking up and hearing your mother shout up the stairwell, "John, Julia; it's time to get up,” as the smell of a hot breakfast drifts up to greet you.