A Return Home

Although I just moved back to my childhood hometown, I really didn’t spend that many years here. I am the oldest in my family, and I spent most of my formative years growing up in Southwest Missouri on a dairy farm. There are seven years between my brother and me and that made a big difference growing up on the farm. Although I was a girl, I in essence became my dad’s boy.

I was expected to be able to do the same things that a boy my age should be able to do. And since it was my dad, I had to do it even better. I hauled hay, milked cows, fed the cows and the calves, drove tractors, shoveled manure and did pretty much anything my dad asked me to do. I was his female boy. I was the oldest, so I had responsibilities to take care of and I had to be sure they were done correctly the first time. There were no second times with my dad.

Now, my dad really wasn’t harsh. He just needed help on our 105 acre farm. I was the oldest, so it fell to me to do the work. My brother and my sisters were just too little at the time. I remember one time when the grain auger quit functioning and I had to haul 5 gallon buckets of grain to fill the bins in the milking stalls. I was quite strong for a girl because I had to be. It was during this time that a young man stopped by to see me and finalize the details for our prom date. When he inquired after me, my dad told him I was in Prom training. It was about this time that I came around the corner with my buckets of grain. He didn’t think that was too funny. But I did and so did my dad.

So why am I reminiscing about the days of the past? Well, it became apparent to me yet again that I am still my dad’s boy. I may be a mother and appreciate flowers and lotion and all of the girly stuff, but I am still my dad’s boy. He just got to have two of them to boss around since my husband is working by his side. My husband was laying floorboard in the bathroom and I was hauling in boxes of tile to lay.

I may be my dad’s boy, but I am also his little girl. It doesn’t matter how old I get over the years. And that is enough to make me smile.

Photo provided by Robb

This past month has found me making some life changes and returning home. My husband and I felt compelled to make a move back to our old hometown from our youth. We never thought we would return to our hometown except for short visits to see our families. But we felt a very strong urge that we needed to return to keep an eye on the parental units. It seems that they are getting older and are not in the best of health. So we packed up our established home and made a move.

We are still in the process of selling our old home and trying to move into our new one. We are moving into my grandparents old home. While it is a neat old house, it wasn’t ready to be moved into. I am currently going through 60 years of stuff and sorting it. There are lots of memories involved. I am perhaps a little less attached to some of the stuff than my mom. She wants to keep everything. I am more prone to throw things out. I have incentive…the sooner I am done, the sooner I can move out of my parents home. (We are currently sleeping at their house.)

My propensity to throw things out has caused a few arguments. Mom contends that some things just can’t be replaced. I argue that I don’t know who needs 8o+ years of funeral programs. My grandma will be 89 in September and has kept every single program from every funeral she has ever attended. I am so not kidding. I threw them out.

The bathroom and kitchen are completely gutted. I don’t have running water yet. But all of that should be changing this week. I have fought a valiant fight to get tile floors in those rooms. I purchased the tile, so I will win. Even though we had to level the bathroom floor by 3 inches.

It has been an interesting process so far. Sometimes I wonder what we were thinking, especially when my husband has had to leave and attend trade shows for his job. But I remind myself that it will be worth it in the end. The house will be awesome. I made progress this week and almost got the office set up after pulling up 4 different layers of carpet. I found wood floors. There is a certain charm beneath the 40+ layers of wallpaper within the walls of this old home.

Returning home can be a good thing, indeed. Even if it is a lot of work in the process.