A Visit Long Overdue

I have written often about my parents, and how much I miss them. I have often thought how wonderful it would be if I could have just one more day, one more hug, one more conversation. Then it happened.

I was going through a box in my closet and came upon a box of tapes. As I was thumbing through them I immediately recognized the handwriting on one of them. It read, 1980, conversations with Aunt Nannie , Aunt Tama, and Uncle Wallace. I had a fire in my home five years ago and thought that this treasure had been lost, and here it was. My mother was raised in Oklahoma, and at the time of this tape my parents were vacationing in my mother's home town of Retrop all the way from California.

My son only knows of my mother through stories and pictures. This was almost more than I could have hoped for. We put the tape into the tape machine and anxiously waited. There she was, there they both were; laughing speaking over one another in conversation anxious to share a story or ask a question. The laughter was contagious as my son and I began to join in, and I began to interject thoughts as if I were talking to a T.V. program.

I knew the characters, I knew their speaking style and 25 years could not change that. It was as easy as riding a bicycle, there, familiar, warm, inviting, and oh so comforting. By the end of the 60 min tape I had what I had wished for, and more.

They're not gone; they are still teaching me lessons. Lessons that I know and have lived by, the love of family, the desire to appreciate my heritage, the joy of simple heart felt conversation in all of its simplicity. They were simple, real people who worked with their hands and brought great laughter into my life and now my son has met them . What a wonderful visit!