August 8, 2022
The roads were laid out in a
perfect north, south, east, and west pattern but that didn’t make it any easier
for us, or our GPS. “Just drive around the block, and drive around
the block again” seemed the most logical advice. A land mostly flat, with corn stalks waving in the
breeze, carefully maintained farmhouses, pristine barns belying their age, and
lawn after lawn looking as if the neighbors conspired to synchronize their day to mow, gave evidence to a
people who take pride in these farms passed from generation to generation. The second time around the square, Mike spotted the house. Though he had never been there in person, he
had heard stories. He had a vision in
his mind of what he would find and he stated with confidence that this was
it. We drove up the drive and I exclaimed
over the old barn - a real, historic beauty! His elderly cousin’s wife came to the door, waved, and motioned for us to
come inside. She had the manner of a busy farm wife who made us feel welcomed while not prolonging the greeting.
It wasn’t long before we
found ourselves sitting at the kitchen table, not the dining room table, but
the kitchen table, which is much more fitting.
Nothing had changed in that kitchen since the mid-seventies. I helped to set the table with vintage Corningware. The host used a metal tray next to the table
for a pitcher of instant tea and the extra condiments that didn’t fit comfortably
on a table for four. A meatloaf with
added baked carrots on the sides of the dish and cooked with the meat, adorned the middle of the table. Baked potatoes and cooked peas along with a vintage Jell-O salad rounded out the meal being served. The ninety-year-old,
white-haired, nearly blind, and feeble host bowed his head and began to
pray. We respectfully remained
silent.
Don is Mike’s fourth cousin and senior to Mike by about thirty years. When Mike was a boy and Don’s boys were young, he would bring them back to Virginia where they camped and hunted on Mike’s grandaddy’s farm. It was important to Don to maintain the ties with his Virginia family and for his children to know their history. Mike, with the wide-eyed wonder of a Shenandoah Valley farm boy who had been no further than the Blue Ridge Mountains on a Sunday afternoon, had looked forward to those visits from his far-away cousins who lived on the Ohio/Indiana line. Years went by and those boys grew up, and the visits stopped for a while but resumed after Mike and I married seventeen years ago. There were several more trips for Don until he became too feeble to make them anymore. Our visit to Indiana to see him was emotional for both my husband and his elderly cousin. As we bowed our heads around this kitchen table I glanced at the host before closing my eyes and saw a man that reminded me of my deceased father-in-law. Perhaps there might be a slight resemblance in looks but the real reminder came from the countenance of a gentle, gracious, humble, peaceful man of character and inner strength. As this gentleman began his simple prayer in the very same manner as Mike’s dad, he spoke as if he were addressing his best friend, simply and directly, without fancy words or repetitious religious phrases. Tears began to flow from my eyes. Don’s thankfulness for our being present was reflected in his words, heartfelt and emotional. I peeked at my husband to see tears running down his face as well. The tears had in fact been at the surface before the prayer had been spoken, as Don sat seeing only shadows through his dimming eyes, and declared that the humble kitchen table where we sat was an alter where friends and family were always welcomed. I felt it as I sat there, the holiness of this unlikely spot where everything unimportant was stripped away, and nothing separated our hearts from acceptance, grace, love, and peace. Although the tour of the house, the historic barn, the lovely landscape, and the stories shared that afternoon were all a delight, those few moments around that kitchen table will always be what we cherish the most about that precious visit.
The Final Leg of the Trip
We spent a lot of our time
traveling to get from one destination to another, covered a lot of miles, and
saw a lot of country that we don’t often get a chance to see. Our trip was coming to a
close but we had one more person we wanted to visit. We met Don’s son, Tristan, in Dayton, Ohio at
a Panera’s and visited for several hours.
Tristan is my age, an artist that makes original artwork and props for live
theater. He’s talented, kind, laughs
easily, and is warm-hearted and generous like his dad.
I had met him on several occasions when he had made trips to Virginia to
hunt.
He stayed with us once in our new place in Laurel Fork and I had taken
an immediate liking to him. I mostly sat
and listened as the men talked and laughed, reminiscing about the fun they had
as children and catching up on recent events in each other’s lives. It was good to see both of them so happy to
be together. We left later than we had
anticipated and drove down the road for several hours to find the cabin we had
rented for the night. GPS took us off
the interstate and onto a lesser highway.
The sky began to get dark and we passed by some run-down mountain shacks
and through some little towns that looked like they had seen better days. The cabin was authentic, a little piece of
history that had been moved to an Equine Center that was off the beaten
path. It had a shower, an uncomfortable
bed, a Keurig, and was priced right. Evidently,
when there are events, the cabin is hard to get, but we arrived on an evening
during the week when there was no one around and the whole facility was abandoned. I liked the rustic cabin even with the uncomfortable
bed but was sorry we disturbed the Killdeer in the driveway and the wren
nesting in the vines on the porch. The
shower there leaked through the bottom and sprayed over the top. I mopped up the water with towels and smiled.
If I had only always stayed in places of comfort with all the amenities, just look at
all the adventures, I would have missed over my lifetime! Someone else can have the five-star hotels or
a tropical cruise! I will take a rustic
cabin in Ohio, a tent in the Yaak River Valley near the Canadian and Idaho border, cook over a campfire at Glacier National Park in
Montana, sleep under the stars in the Sierra Nevada, freeze in the back of a truck while traveling the Alaskan-Canadian Highway through remote Yukon Territory, or even remove a tarantula from a bed in Guatemala!
How blessed I have been to see so many places and how fortunate that I have had the opportunity to get dirt on my jeans
while doing it! And, how blessed I am
that my partner for this latest adventure is one who also exemplifies the kindness, gentleness, and simple spirituality passed down to him through the generations.
