Strawberries with Cream

It's been five years since Grandma died. Five years, and yet some days I still find myself following my "God bless Grandpa"s with "God bless Grandma." In those five years I've graduated college, gotten married, had a child. Two of my cousins have also gotten married.  The family is still growing.

We drove past the farm on the way back from Cora's wedding. Nick had never had the chance to visit it, or even merely see it, and since heaven only knows when we might have the chance to go out that way again, we stopped by. It's been about five and a half years since Grandpa and Grandma sold the farm, which means most of my memories of Grandma are wrapped up in that place. In some ways, it's hard to believe that if we knocked on that screen door and went up those few stairs into the kitchen, Grandpa and Grandma wouldn't be there waiting for us with supper on the table.

I know Grandma would have absolutely loved to meet Guinevere, and I'm both sad she didn't, and thankful that Grandpa has. I never got to meet my great-grandparents, and Gwen is blessed to have five still living. At this point, though, Gwen will have to wait until heaven to meet her Great-Grandma Mumme. In the meantime, I'll be sure to tell her the stories: how we all built teepees in the grove and spent the week together for Grandpa and Grandma's 40th, how there were always stick pins on the floor in the dining room and living room from Grandma's sewing and the little kids would hunt them down, how there was hardly a place in the whole country where Grandma didn't know someone, how we would take turns riding on the brutecycle and go hunting for treasures in the grove, how there was always a dessert on hand when we visited (probably pizza bars), how she and Grandpa always did their best to come to our recitals and visit for birthdays, how she always sat and rocked in the red rocking chair at home, how the older girl cousins spent a few days at the farm together when we were old enough to drive (if I recall, we spent a lot of that trip discussing Harry Potter). I'll tell her about the little black train toy we used to ride around in the kitchen, how the steps up to the second floor were steep and how the wolf skin on the wall was scary as a little child, how we played dress up and Indians, how we couldn't go in the hay loft of the barn because the floor wasn't stable, how we would watch My Many Colored Days and The Seventh Brother in the living room, how we loved using the typewriter when we were allowed, how we once made a horror film with Bre and Becca and crawled up into the crawl space in the basement, how I celebrated a couple birthdays there, how we used to go on rides in the tractor and combine, how we got to bottle feed calves at the neighbor's, how it was always so windy that you had to speak loudly outside to be heard. That house seemed to change with me as I grew: becoming smaller and more familiar, the upstairs no longer scary at night and the basement no longer forbidden. But even though the house, the family, and I have all changed through the years, to me it will always be fixed in my heart and mind as Grandpa and Grandma's house. To me, it will always be The Farm.