Misty Colored Memories

Dismantling part of the deck has unexpectedly proven to be a nostalgic and somewhat sad undertaking. You wouldn’t think that it would have this effect on us, but it has.

One of the days that Jason was working on the deck, Isabelle was here and she was a great help. This is not said sarcastically, either. She was cute and helpful and lovely to have around. It made us think that when we built this deck, Ashley was the same age as Isabelle. Where does the time go, that we have a grandchild who is the same age that her mother was almost 2 decades ago?

Jason built the deck with the help and supervision of my Dad. There were words and numbers, even a phone number (whose was that?) written on deck boards in my Dad’s handwriting. It’s hard to believe that he’s been gone 9+ years, much harder to believe that we built this deck with the help of his hands nearly 18 years ago. It is hard to destroy something that he built.

Removing some of the deck revealed the original color of the house. Our siding is made of some combination of wood particles (unlike most of the housing around here which has the much nicer maintenance free siding–that was a luxury that we couldn’t afford when we built our house, those many years ago) and so it had to be painted. We painted (and sided, and did finish work, and installed a sprinkler system, and roofed–again, with the help of my Dad) our way in as a means of down payment, so the original color was something we painted on ourselves. With the help of many, including, yes, my Dad, but also my brother-in-law John. Now, John can’t stand or feed himself, much less get up on a ladder with paintbrush in hand to help us paint our house. He would if he could. I know it.

We are remodeling, repainting, grooming the house and yard in preparation for a graduation party that will happen here next spring. (I know, it seems as if we are worrying too far ahead, but, in Minnesota, there is not much time in the spring, if it even comes, before graduation parties start happening.) That graduation party is for a little girl, now young woman, who wasn’t even born when we painted the house or put up the deck. She was only 8 when we painted it last.

My father-in-law was here helping one day. It’s hard to watch him age. It was hard to see that he needed to come help, to feel needed by his son. It’s hard to look ahead and see us as wanting to feel needed by our children.

We are feeling the loss of those who have gone, those who will be going and those who are just making changes in their lives that don’t necessarily include us. It’s a little bit of growing older/loss of innocence and a little bit of empty nest all in one. It doesn’t mean that we don’t look forward to the times we’ll have together, alone, or that we don’t appreciate all the gifts in our lives. Probably it is quite the opposite.

I don’t know how to leave this. It is just something that we were both feeling and it came so unexpectedly, that it kind of took our breaths away. At least momentarily.