Thinking of home

A week from now I'll be well on my way to Ohio to be with my family for Thanksgiving, the first time I'll have been there for that holiday in years. As I sit here thinking about that trip, I'm listening to Judy Collins sing about her grandmother's house, which is "still there, but it isn't the same."

My own grandmother's house is still there, back in Ohio, still owned by my family, though hanging onto it hasn't always been easy. It was built by my great-grandfather, a German immigrant. My grandmother and my mother were born there. My grandfather spent some of his last hours there.

But, as the song goes, it isn't the same.

My brother lives in the smaller of the two houses on the property. The other, the main house, is occupied by tenants, good tenants who pay the rent on time. But it just isn't the same.

I make a point to drive past there when I make my way home to Ohio. And, as Collins sings, I wish the others who drive by it could see what I see: a porch full of people on a warm summer evening, rocking, swinging, talking and laughing, while the children look for buckeyes in the tiny yard or roost on the porch steps and count the cars passing by.

But that was a very long time ago. My grandmother died in 1980. Her beautiful things have been dispersed throughout the family (though my brother still dreams of one day filling the house with all its original furnishings). And while the house doesn't look bad -- in fact, it looks well for its age -- I've come to accept that it is, after all, just a house.

Thank goodness for memories that don't dim with time. Because when I want to, I can put myself there, on that porch, on a warm summer evening with the nighthawks screeching overhead, watching cars -- and time -- pass by without a care in the world.