My parents still live in the house in which I grew up. They have a large back yard. I’m of the age in which I’m struck by a good deal of memories whenever I visit. As I write this, I’ve been here for the week to assist my parents with various things. I take walks through that big back yard whenever I visit of late, and there’s an odd mental thing that happens: I can visualize the arrangements and different states of the back yard…and, for that matter, the rest of their home…through the decades. With those visualizations come certain, very specific memories.
These vivid memories began some time ago, and have only grown over the years. I think that it’s easy to lapse into these memories because of how amazingly quiet it is where my parents live…it’s a very rural area, so the lack of noise is palpable when visiting. The memories that strike me so vividly have become almost formulaic by this point.
I remember playing near the apple trees in a Spider-Man mask when I was a kid.
When I was a bit older, I would step through the back door from my room to the yard and pretend that it was interior of my TARDIS.
The first time that I saw Transformers, I re-enacted scenes from that first episode in our side yard. That series, incidentally, was life-altering to a kid my age.
Perhaps the most amazing memory involves a storage shed on their property. When I was a kid, my dad built a secret club-house inside of that shed. There was a table, and I later put a map on the wall to make it a secret headquarters. It was secret…the door was hidden, a secret panel in the outside wall that opened when a small peg was pulled. My dad put so much love and attention into that clubhouse.
For the last few years, the moments that strike me about this back yard have grown in number. I remember chasing fireflies with my daughters. I remember a Father’s Day when my daughters made a heart from various found items and placed it in the back yard. They couldn’t wait to show me, and when we visit lately, they can’t wait to chase fireflies with me.
A generation has passed, and I’m watching them form memories in this same back yard that they will (I hope) always take with them, just as I have. I think a lot families in other parts of the world experience this with homes and properties that are passed down through generations, and we often aren’t able to experience it because our culture has become so nomadic. I’m glad I’ve gotten to in at least a small way, because the perception of time brings this incredible shift in perspective around your loved ones. One realizes what is important.
This week, I was thinking about how I felt guilty about not playing in that secret clubhouse enough. My dad and I talked about how much attention he put into it. He was proud of that project. Before I left, I thanked him for building that awesome gift, for giving it so much effort. He said, sincerely, “you’re welcome.”
That moment was profoundly meaningful. As meaningful as any that have happened in that amazing back yard.