Part of Me

A couple of weeks ago we spent some time up at Grandma's.  The countryside there is rich with history, our history.  A lot of it I don't know but some I do.  I have a lot of memories linked to the people and the land, and there have been stories I've heard that sometimes feel like memories.  Only they are someone else's, not mine.  I like to think of  them though, grandparents, uncles and great-uncles, aunts and great-aunts living life there.  Traveling familiar roads to work, tending gardens, hanging out clothes to dry, going to town.  There are stories of hard winters, loss, and even run-ins with the "law."

This old house rests in Cherry Lane.  My dad likes to tell about spending the night here, at his grandparents' home, when he was a boy.  He said when they woke in the morning the layers of blankets on the bed were striped with snow that had fallen through slats in the roof.  It is so hard to try to be there, to get a sense of people going in and out, kids running around.  My dad as a boy, visiting his family here.

Part of me wishes there was some way to walk here, on this grass, through that door, with them, to know them. And then to have my own memories.
People I knew, people I didn't know.  Somehow, all a part of me.