Remembering what once was...

Home where my dad's grandparents retired on Poplar St...

Home where my grandmother grew up on High St...

My dad came to visit this past weekend and we had a great time!  One of the things we did was drive about an hour and a half Southwest to the small town of Nelsonville, Ohio where my dad's mother grew up.  My dad hadn't been back there since his grandfather passed away...he and my mom were engaged so it was back in the late 60's.  It was interesting how 40 years later, as we drove into town, all of a sudden memories came flooding back to my dad.  As he found the house his mother was raised in and the one his grandparents has retired in, the stories started flowing.  He talked of remembering his grandfather sitting on the porch swing watching the world go by, working in the garden to the side of the house, a chicken coup to the back of the house, and on and on.  His grandfather had been the town grocer and had done well back in his day and my dad remembers a big white house with pillars up on a hill and a clean and pristine yard, but the houses were now old and dilapidated....falling apart with overgrown shrubbery...and, by todays standards, not big at all....obviously not the houses or place he remembered from his youth.  As we were driving out of Nelsonville to head back to Mount Vernon, my dad made the comment that has stuck with me...."I'm just glad that I can remember what it used to look like...those are the memories I have and want to remember."  


I began to think of how we remember things from the past, both good and bad, and how they help to shape the person that we are today.  My dad was obviously greatly influenced by his grandfather Frances and respected him very much.  I felt like I kind of knew him after listening to my dad tell stories about him.  It makes me wonder how I'm going to be remembered and talked about 3 generations from now...I can only hope that my grandchildren can talk about me the way that my dad talked about his grandfather.  He did talk about some of the negative things too...that's a part of life...but the positive overshadowed those things.  This little journey we took down memory lane couldn't have come at a better time than at the beginning of my countdown to 40.  I want to remember my past and the legacy of those who've gone before me...oh, it's not all positive that's for sure.  I know when I go back and revisit some things from my upbringing (and I've done this a lot in recent years), I have found many things were not as I remembered them to be or how I would have wanted or dreamed for them to be, but I'm so thankful that I have the choice to focus on the good things.  


So in my countdown to 40 things I've learned from the past that I want to learn from and grow from....
1.  I've learned that I have the choice to focus more on the positive things and not the negative things that have happened in my life and my dad helped me to see this in spending this past weekend with him.  He chooses to see the best in the people that have been and are in his life as well as the things that have happened in his life,  both in his control and out of his control.  Although my dad and I may not see eye to eye on everything, I respect him as my father and love him dearly.  Thank you God for my dad and the legacy of those that have gone before me!!