The road traveled

It was a beautiful morning and I had a little extra time so I took a pretty long and meandering route to the office this morning. In my wanderings I biked past the first home I ever really knew. We had lived in a couple of different places when I was a baby and toddler but I have no real memories of them. But when I was three we moved into the place I still remember as home.

I have many vivid memories of this place though we moved away from it when I was younger than my children are now. I remember biking to the corner store for candy and baseball cards. I remember playing ball in the street. I remember the swing set that equipped us for flight. I remember the baby pool with a basketball goal attached that we would play in in the back yard. I remember my mother speaking with a prophetic voice against violence on television and toy guns. I remember her words falling on deaf ears as we went over to Mike's house or Kyle's house and did whatever we wanted.

I remember less the arguing that my parents must have done back then and more the love they shared with us. I remember them holding me when I was scared. I remember being allowed to sleep in their bed if I fell out of mine in the middle of the night. I remember falling off of the top bunk with rather frightening regularity.

I remember them comforting and reassuring me when my brother broke his arm. I remember being certain that it would never heal. We had broken many toys before. I knew what that word meant. His arm was broken.

I remember not long after we moved from there my father comforting me as we threw rocks as far as we could in the park upon hearing of his father's death. That was my Papaw. Papaw was the best person in the world. He was the entire world to me. It was as if God Himself had died. It never occurred to me that that was my father's Daddy, too. I was my daughter's age then. Would I be able to do the same for her if she suddenly and tragically lost her Pops? Somehow I doubt it.

As I wonder these things I wonder if we have made the kind of home for my our children as my parents did for us. I pray that we have. I pray that they will remember their parents' love for them more than they remember our frail and fragile humanness and our failings.

And I pray that some day they will be able to wonder the same about their homes and their children.