This post has little to do with running but everything to do with the person I am.
Memories are like fingerprints. Tiny bits of information that are so unique no two people actually share ones that are perfectly the same. While some may enjoy a cinematic ability to stroll through their lives and revisit the days in their past, others struggle to bring into focus the aged Polaroid-like snapshots hiding in our minds. Unfortunately my memories are the latter but the the memories I can bring into focus often contain moments of growing up on my grandfather's farm.
With the help of photographs I can find those memories that have become blurry in my mind. I can clearly see the hay elevator sitting in front of the haymow doors. I can hear the hum of the tractors as they bring in wagons of hay. I can remember the smells in the air. I can see my grandfather as sweat drips from his forehead.
As I look at photos I can remember days spent in the barn hiding away from chores. Sitting in the grain stores painting with water colors stolen from my older sister. I can remember hushed conversations with girl friends and stolen kisses with boyfriends. I can remember my grandparent's voices as I remember my grandmother calling me in for lunch and my grandfather scolding me when he caught me building another fort in the barn.
But most importantly I can envision things that I never got to see. I can imagine how my great-grandfather worked along side my grandfather in this barn. The thought that their very hands touched the same doors as I did. Knowing that although I never knew my mother as a child, I have shared the same playground with her in growing up in this barn makes me feel as though I am somehow closer to her. Thinking that she might have stolen kisses in this barn from my father when they were dating makes me grieve even more for the loss of this place and the moments that it held
Even in the loss of a piece of my history, I am beyond grateful for every moment I was blessed to live within it. I remind myself that it is only in the looking back that we can clearly see how to move forward. So I will share my fleeting memories with my family and friends to help a small piece of my past to live on in each of them. Then soon there will be so many people holding those fragmented bits of family history that it will never be forgotten.
Cove Creek Farm
Doris June Barrack Diehl and Max Robert Diehl
