I'm back on the family farm in rural Alberta. It isn't really the family farm and it never really was. It's my grandmother's farm. It
was my grandmother's. I've spent my entire life visiting these walls, these windows, this land. Back then, at the beginning, my beloved Grandfather was alive. There were kittens and baby cows. Baby birds and baby pigs. Everything was young and healthy and full and free.
My grandfather died when I was 5. I barely remember, I was so young. Vague memories of clutching kittens tightly around their midsection and following my grandfather or sitting on his lap. Loving and protective and warm. He had big hands. That's what I remember. Big weathered hands that smelled funny. Smelled like gasoline, but I didn't know that.
After he died, the farm was never really quite the same but over time, what the farm was became the standard. Visits were made, bread was baked. A grandmother that made my childhood idyllic with hand sewn dolls and hand knit sweaters was visted. Camping trips nearby and just outside the back door. Weiner roasts and burnt marshmallow sticky fingers.
Over the years, I grew up and I grew sullen, less interested in the rural origins of the family. I stayed away. I came back for visits when it was neccessary due to some family gathering. I learned to drive out on the country roads. I was 16 then and I thought my time was better spent getting into trouble than getting close to my cousins.
Later yet when I moved to Calgary, I came back. I came and visited and loved to be here. A refuge from the big city bustle and hustle. The rural landscape captivated me and I took long drives looking for worn out barns and abandoned houses. Looking really for some forgotten treasure. A left behind book, a purse with a crumpled bill or even some piece of furniture small enough to take away and covet. I drove up and down the roads looking for treasure when it was always right there on the farm. The long ago
written words of my grandfather on the walls of the barn and garage, the old cabinet with the lists of cows and heifers held; the left behind presence of the best present of all, my grandfather.
More years passed and as I moved further away. My connection to the farm and rural Alberta only grew stronger.
Wheat and wild roses weave their way down my arm, etched forever in a tribute to this land. The items I surround myself are are reflections of the farm. The old fruit crates and butter boxes and now the salvaged glass door knobs that opened the doors to these rooms of warmth, love, my childhood and family.
Now, the farm has been sold. My grandmother is leaving when she can, when it is positive and good and the farm has been sold to someone who grew up in the area. Someone that may love it as much as we have all loved it. The scraps have been burned, the writings added to and photographed, the cabinet taken off the wall and washed. Remnents of a childhood stored in the basement moved. The family gathered for one last Thanksgiving and in usual fashion forgot to really thank one another for all the times spent, the experiences had, the love felt. Instead the toast was just simply.. to the farm.
To the farm..I will miss you.
