There's No Place Like It... Finale

It's hard to finish any journey.  Somewhere at the end, around the last turn when your heart starts shading towards home, you know that time is limited and you squeeze every last ounce of energy into the moment trying to remember every last little bit so that you can pull it out of the mnemonic dresser drawer in the not two distant future.

My friend, Ben, came to visit in the middle of the last week.  He lives in Montana with his wife and son.  As a dentist, Ben sees all sorts of people throughout his days; but rarely does he get to see people that are actually glad to see him.  As Jesus once said, 'No one goes to the doctor unless they are sick," well, no one goes to the dentist unless it's an absolute necessity.  And then it's usually too late.  It probably would do Ben no good to say, "Why didn't you come earlier?" because inevitably, they would create a melodramatic story of woe, but in reality, people just don't think about their teeth being that important.  Until they see the movie Castaway, that is.  I still have nightmares about the self-realized orthodontic surgery with an ice skate.  Anyway, I was happy to see Ben.  He's not my dentist.  He's got really nice teeth.

We spent Thursday hanging out at my parents' house.  I felt like I was a teenager again bringing friends over to the house, playing cards until midnight, you know, things you do when you're younger.  Now I'm lucky if I can make it to ten o'clock, but during my trip I think I was up until at least midnight every night. 

In seminary, Ben, who was my next door neighbor, two other seminarians and myself would get together at Ben's apartment every Monday night and play Settlers of Catan and then multiple games of Pinochle.  Very competitive people playing games.  Hmmm.  Good times.

Ben and I drove to visit one of those seminarians, Dave, who is now a pastor in a town about twenty-five minutes from my parents.  As we drove, Ben and I settled into conversations of old - like putting on a comfortable shoe and when we reunited with Dave, the clocks turned back.  Perhaps you've all felt that before whether hearing the voice of an old friend, recognizing the handwriting (what's that) of someone you haven't seen for a while or even catching a whiff of perfume which returns you to a previous point in time when life seemed, well, probably less complicated. 

Time with Ben was short - kind of like time with everyone else.  And when he left on the Saturday morning, it was kind of like a quick, brief dream - of the ilk when you have a nap.  Good friends are the ones that never seem to change no matter distance or time.

We traveled to my grandparent's house on the Saturday.  They were celebrating their 65th wedding anniversary.  I don't know what the percentage of marriages that make it to that point but it has to be infinitesimal.  Just like the 60th, it was a celebration of life together.  My grandfather just turned 90 and my grandmother 83.  As we approached their house, the same one they've been living in for multiple decades, I had to smile.  Amazing how a trip to the grandparents brings back an amazing nostalgia for a different age, when I was little and my parents hair contained no gray.  My grandparents both had cat's eye glasses and worked the small grocery store/butcher up town in Frederika.  One of my fondest memories of visiting them when I was younger was the opportunity to pick any kind of candy from their store when we left.  I always chose grape Hubba Bubba bubble gum.  I wish we still had that. 

As the day wore on, after the never ending photo shoot which seemingly takes far too long for most family reunions, I noticed something different about Grandpa and Grandma.  I'd never seen them look so content.  As friends and family streamed past them, shaking hands with them, giving them cares of congratulations, eating the buffet meal, they seemed incredibly grateful that life had brought them together for this long.  Sixty-five years.  It's hard to even imagine, isn't it?  Even though my grandfather has prostate cancer and my grandmother has various maladies including an aching back and foot problems, they stood straighter and happier than I'd seen them in a long time (even though I hadn't seen them in a long time).  It was a beautiful thing. 

Life together that long has to have a certain amount of hereditary luck.  You have to have good genes, an excellent awareness of what is safe and what is fun, a good sense of humor, surround yourself with people who care about you and then enjoy the ride. 

The next day, at the baptism, my grandpa had brought along his visual journey of life - his photo album.  Incredible photos from the early 20th century; cars, clothes, hairstyles all foreign to me.  The people in them looked alternatively happy and stoic depending on the picture and if they were in church or not.  As we looked through the pictures, I asked my grandpa what his favorite time in life was.

He looked at me through his bifocaled glasses, watery eyes gazing at me with amusement.  "I don't know if I should tell you this," he said as he rifled through the pages to some photos from the 1940's.  Pointing to a page, my grandfather showed me himself in his army uniform.  "Those," he said, "were probably the best days of my life."

No slam against family time or any time spent with Grandma, but he enjoyed being a young man - carefree with his friends.  And now as he paged through the photos of that album, almost everyone in the black and white pictures had passed on.  With a sigh he closed the album and looked at Grandma and smiled.  He was content.

If only we could all be like that.

So my journey closed.  Connecting with family; revisiting long lost memories of childhood, early adulthood and young family life, I made my way with great pleasure to the airport thinking of my own family here in Australia who was waiting patiently for me. 

I hope I get sixty-five years. 

Thanks to all the people who made my trip an extraordinary one.  Especially those who housed, fed and drove me around.  To my parents; thanks for the first 40 years.  To my siblings and spouses; thanks for a great time in Canada; to my grandparents; thanks for all the years of fun; to my friends in the States particularly Ben, David, the Dianchuns, Gorski's, Welk's for organization of church fun; the church family in Rake, Uncle Tom, all my Aunts and Uncles, cousins and spouses who I got to reconnect with in Frederika.

Thank God for life.

I'll get back to regular writing.  I hope I hear from you all, too.