I sit typing while listening to clothes tumble in the dryer. I look out my brother-in-law’s North Carolina window at a tall pine tree and the dappled light shining through needles far above. I miss this part of the United States: the east coast. I grew up not far from here, in Virginia, about 20 minutes from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean.
I miss the pine trees, the smell of the ocean, and the climate. Most of all, I miss my childhood home and the wonderful times spent there. Oh, there was plenty of angst, bad times, and drudgery, but most of that is lost to memory. I usually only remember the good times, the specialness, and my family.
While driving south from Pennsylvania, where I have been the past week and a half supporting my wife’s work, it took all my effort to keep right on the highway towards my destination in Charlotte, North Carolina, and not go left to my home city of Norfolk, Virginia. I had just visited my cousin in Richmond, and remembered well the drive south from there, highway lined with tall evergreens and green grass. While I drove, memories flooded back to me in a rush, like the cars passing in the left lane.
My sister was born a bit before we moved to my favorite home on Sheppard Avenue, 30 years ago today. They tell me that when she was announced, still ensconced within my mother, that five-year-old me jumped on my bicycle and rode away upset. I remember wanting a little brother at the time, and not being happy that I was, in fact, going to receive a little sister, but I don’t remember anything about an angry bike ride. (Truth be told, I wanted a little brother so I could beat up on him and I knew I wouldn’t be able to do that to a sister. I was not always treated well by my older brother, and thought turn about would be fair play. What can I say? I was five. I’ve matured since then.)
Anyway, a few months later, just after I turned six, my beautiful sister was born on the 29th of March. I remember being at school when my mother went into labor, and being called in to an office with my brothers and told that my mom had given birth. There is a photograph of my dad in the hospital holding newborn sister and the three of us crowding around to catch a look at her. I don’t know if the school memory is real, but I suppose it could be. I’d have to check with my brothers and see if either of them remembers.
Someone else lives in the home we were in then, and in the home on Sheppard. It is no longer “mine” though I still dream of purchasing it and moving in someday. I have no idea what renovations or upgrades have been made since then, but in the ever present realm of memory, it still looks as it did. I would probably be disappointed if they had cut down any trees or uprooted any bushes, or changed a room or something, so it may be best if that house stays in memory. I don’t know.
My sister and I grew up in that home on Sheppard. For ten or so years, we lived, played, loved, fought (don’t be fooled, we fought a lot), made up, and matured (I told you I did!) in that home. Like I said, bad memories and good memories. Then my dad took us to Orlando, Florida, and then the island nation of Papua New Guinea (but that is another long story). I did most of my growing up in Norfolk, and there my sister started her life journey.
Another memory invades my recollections, of hanging out on the Gettysburg battlefield while I was in college. My parents and sister had come to visit, and we went out to the fields and forests of that old war ground to spend the day. (I think we would have been around twenty-two and sixteen?) I remember, too, longer ago, my mother taking us on field trips to Fredericksburg, Yorktown, Williamsburg, Jamestown, and many other historical places in Virginia, as it is a state littered with the memories of dead soldiers. That day in central Pennsylvania, a chill wind blew through the trees and shade, though the sun was warm as we walked from place to monument and old fortification.
Today we live over a thousand miles away from Norfolk in Texas, near Dallas, but we are fortunate to be close, both geographically and emotionally. I love my sister dearly, and now her two daughters, the eldest of which is the same age I was when I found out my sister was on her way. They are precious souls that I cannot wait to see in a few days when my time here is completed.
I wonder what the next thirty years will bring to me, and my forever little sister. What joys, sorrows, hard times, and celebrations will we face together? I obviously have no idea, though I can imagine some: birthdays, holidays, the growing up of her children, and our adulthoods spent pursing careers, hobbies, and togetherness. I can’t wait for all of it, even the darker times, because I know she will be there with me, as she has been for thirty years past, through long plane rides, foreign lands, university, sadness, and happiness. Thanks, sis, for being there for me.
a simple man 