Connections

Looking Back To My Past

 

I have always loved stories.  As a child, I remember listening to my Grandpa tell stories to people while sitting under a big cedar tree in his yard.  Times were much simpler back then.  People interacted more with each other, and there was an art to telling a good story.  Grandpa would whittle different things with his pocketknife while he told his stories.  And my Grandma would be sitting on the front porch shelling peas in the summertime.  I recall those days as if they were yesterday, even though many years have now passed.  I think what I miss the most about those times is the connection that we all felt to one another.

 

During those times, I was always surrounded by lots of family.  Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, we all belonged together.  The outside world almost didn’t exist.  Sure, everyone had their problems, but there was a connection to those people that formed when I was a child that I long for today.

 

In our modern-day society, there is a lack of connection.  Everyone is so busy rushing to go about their way that they are often unaware of their surroundings.  Trying to speak to someone now is nearly impossible because they are so in tuned with their phone screen.  People spend more time looking at a screen now than they do another person’s face.  And we wonder why our world is filled with chaos, fighting, and turmoil.  I believe it is because we have lost our connection to other human beings.

 

I find myself longing for those connections with other people.  And I am fortunate enough to have them with a few special people.  But because everyone is so busy, we don’t get to see each other frequently.  But when we do, something within my soul is restored.  That connection to another person is once again fed.  I guess it takes me back to the past.  Back to that front porch by the cedar tree where there was comfort and shade in the summer.  I go back in my mind and hear the laughter of my family and the sound of the wood chips flying against Grandpa’s pocketknife.  I return to that front porch and to the sound of those peas falling into that metal bowl in Grandma’s lap.  I return to those sweet memories from the past and long for that comfort and closeness again.  Those are some of my sweetest and most treasured memories.  And I am very grateful to have experienced them. 

 

 

 

The old house is still there, but falling down around itself now.  And that cedar tree is also there, but it looks much smaller as an adult than it did in my childhood.  Everything looks different now.  And Grandma and Grandpa have been gone for many years.  A lot of my family that used to sit with me on that front porch or under that tree are also gone as well.  But those memories of them are always present in my mind.  Sometimes they make me feel so homesick that I can barely stand it.  I miss the porch, the cedar tree and the summers from the past.  I miss those loving people from my childhood.  But most of all, I miss the familiar connections that I felt to those people.  I miss the comfort of the conversations and the stories that were told.   I miss all of those things and more.  But I am so grateful to have these memories.  I am grateful for the family that gave them to me and for the connections that I will carry with me always.