The Beauty of Sameness

There is a comforting sameness to visiting Jeff's family in Dublin, CA (Bay Area). Sandy and Karen Camacho bought their house in 1979. Pet deaths, aging, and new furniture bring some changes. Even the color of Jeff's childhood room is pastel green; painted so to accommodate a grandchild who inhabited the room for a brief time. The sameness I speak of is more in the house and neighborhood where the feelings of memories seem to percolate like happy ghosts. The memories are in the backyard where Jeff likes to point out spots where he planted flowers as a kid, the old gray van parked in the cul-de-sac, the quaint park where Jeff played as a child and then made mischief as a teenager. It is almost like I could hold my ear to the apricot tree in the Camacho's back yard and have it whisper to me as a sea shell whispers sounds of the ocean. What would it whisper? Children laughing with Molly (the family Golden Retriever)? The sound of a hammer banging into existence Jeff's famous club house? Sounds of the tears shed when last photos were taken with departing missionaries or children growing up and heading for college? Whatever it would say, it doesn't need to. I feel the memories in the air.

I love the memories at Jeff's house because they are part of him, his history. Since Jeff is deeply connected with me, I am comforted by the sameness of his home. Bankruptcy, rifts, divorce, and Alzheimers have taken my tangible history and sameness. At times I've felt the part of an orphan or gypsy. I've felt I have little history to offer my husband or children.

Sometimes I will literally ache to take Nicky's hand and run through the fields of my childhood home. I want to play hide and seek in the corn fields. Those fields now hold hundreds of new homes, a church, and even an elementary school. I want to run up snow drifts in my back yard, pick raspberries, and climb the same trees all with her. I want Nicky and Andy to be a part of my history in the same way they become part of Jeff's when they visit his home or when his parent's take them in their arms.

Does it sound like I am sad? For the most part I'm not. I am at peace with loss because I have gained so much. Do most people's parents still live married in their childhood home? Chances are most do not. Though I count Jeff and those like him lucky.

My mind wanders and wonders how I might give my children my history without anything physical to whisper the memories. I will have to write them some stories. Hopefully I will write them well enough that they can get lost in my corn fields, smell my mother's favorite pillow or her oil paints, and watch my father garden and swear while he fixes broken sprinkler pipes, all with their imagination.

Nicky plays in the Camacho's back yard.