Time Out of Place
Hi! Remember me? I’m that little girl that you used to drag outside with you to play dinky cars under the big maple tree in our front yard. The one who always had to be Mac, even though secretly I wanted to be Joe, just once!
Remember that?
You were playing with me, paying attention to me; so, I didn’t push it. I just enjoyed our time.
Remember the hay forts? I was always in awe of how you could make the fort so cozy and sturdy and so very excited that you would take the time to do something so amazing AND that I’d get to play in it WITH you!
You. My big brother. How I idolized you!
Oh, the hours we’d spend in that barn, in that hay… If I close my eyes I can almost smell it now; just thinking back to those lazy, warm summer days. So carefree. So unaware. So happy.
The treks back in the woods to cut wood for the winter, remember those? On the tractor? And remember, when Dad felled that tree and then panicked because he couldn’t find me and thought I’d gotten in the way?
But I was ok, playing with the kerf you’d given me from the cut dad had made, using it as a plate and the saw dust as food. Completely unaware a huge tree had missed landing on me by a couple feet.
Remember that time we tried making…. taffy, was it? Tapping the maple trees and boiling down the syrup…? You were so proud Dad let you make such a huge bonfire in the driveway to put the big pot over. Then pouring the sticky stuff over the snow to harden. It was so STICKY and so YUMMY!
Gosh, it was so, so long ago the memory is fuzzy, but it’s there. I can still see it all like it was just last week.
One thing’s for certain, I sure do remember the sledding ‘luge’ you created that one winter, down the side of the road. The hours you put in making it smooth and icy, walking up and down the hill, so meticulously checking your work. Pouring water on it, sledding down again and again to make it flat and level; and all so my friends and I could sit on your back on the crazy carpet and slide down. We went so fast!!!
Then of course we’d have to walk back up the hill, but I didn’t mind, not one bit. Because you were paying attention to me.
I recently reconnected with my friend from back then and she remembers that too! In fact, she said it’s one of her fondest memories.
That’s all I have now. My memories. Memories of how it used to be; of how it will never be again. Forty plus years can make strangers out of family, turn what was once known into something strange. Foreign.
After all, that’s a whole lifetime, practcally.
I want you to know I don’t hold any ill will toward you. I understand why you did what you did, or rather… what you didn’t do. And that’s ok. Life can be tough sometimes and we can’t always think of others in our times of grief. I grieved too. I needed my big brother. Still do in some ways. But that’s ok. I'm managing.
I am glad I have my memories, though. Time may erode them little by little, but I will always know they happened, and they will always make me smile.
Memories of you. My big brother.