"Though nothing can bring back the hour..."

I remember the day my childhood as I knew it left. We got a call early in the morning, and from that point on, I became a person who looked on the period before it as my consistently happy time.

My Poppa was an extraordinary man, at least from what I knew of him at the time and what I have gathered since then. From him I obtained my love of classical music, the ability to sing (this I got from my mother as well), and a legacy of faith. I have no bad memories of him. I remember being excited weeks in advance to go see him and the rest of my dad's extended family. It was a safe place, a place where I belonged, and I disliked living so far away from him.

The call came when I was eight years old. My own dad had been been up visiting Poppa (his dad) for what might have been a few days or a few weeks. My memory fails me on that point. The day before the call, my entire extended family was at Poppa and Grandma's house on the southern Oregon Coast. Everyone except for my siblings and my mom. We were still in California, as school wouldn't be out for another week or two.

The day we got the phone call, I was woken up quite early by my mom. She pulled my siblings and I together and let us know that Poppa had died. He was 57 years old, and had suffered a massive heart attack.

I was only 8, but the impact of his death immediately took shape for me. We had pictures of him all around our house, and I went into hysterics as I realized that the man in those pictures was no longer on earth. I took no cue from adults on how to grieve. I was wrapped up in my own very real and tearing grief. It would not leave me for years.

I don't know why his death affected me so, but I do remember it changing my overall perspective of life. I started to view life much less optimistically, and begin to refer to everything in my life in comparison to the perceived perfection it had been before. I feared my dad reaching the age of 57 and dying. He didn't make it that long, and was taken 10 years before he would have reached it. The day he died was the day my childhood really ended. I still search for the feeling of the safety coming home to Dad gave me.

We went to Tillamook this weekend. The sights and smells of the Oregon coast in the summer always brings back childhood memories. It was strange to see my daughter experiencing the same things I did. I sometimes still feel so much like that child I used to be, and long for the freedom to roam the forests, pick wild berries, make shelter in houses of ferns and trees, and make daisy rings for my hair. I remember the stories I would create as I looked up into the dark woods, imagining myself a princess some days and an explorer the next. I remember tromping through swamps with my cousins, pretending to be on our own, looking for various treasures and making plans for the future.

But reality comes crashing back to me as I run after Andrew, go wading with Kadee Joy, try to keep Jeffy from digesting a rock or piece of bark. And I don't mind it. I enjoy the fact that I can create a safe world for my children, that I can open up doors for them into new worlds, both imagined and real. I relish the fact that my husband and I are in a place in our relationship where we can be examples of how to love and be loved. I look forward to today, and to the days ahead.

I remember hearing the quote from Wordsworth for the first time, and the immediate connection it created for me.

"What though the radiance which was once so bright be now forever taken from my sight. Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendour in the grass, glory in the flower. We will grieve not, but rather find strength in what remains behind."

The second part of the quote took me years to come to terms with. I grieved for the past long and hard. Finding strength in what remained was too difficult. I couldn't find strength in it. I wanted the past back. I wanted my dad back. I wanted my Poppa back. I wanted my childhood back.

But now I have finally reached a place where I am not just okay with being a wife and a mother. I actually enjoy it.

I think that there are people who quickly put behind their grief and chase after new dreams. For better or for worse, I am not one of those people. I hold on to the ideals of my childhood, and bury them after many, many battles with reality. Tromping through the forest and dreaming of fairy tales is not possible in the life I live...and would cause me to miss the many joys that each day brings me in the reality of my life.

Home has been an ever evolving place in my life. Home has ceased being the house of my parents. It is ever more closely resembling the place I live now. It is detached from the past, and knit tightly in the present. I don't know what the future holds, but I know that the past can no longer be where I choose to cling to.

So I head into the morning trying to not just find strength in what remains behind, but to find joy in it as well. It will not be the unfettered joy of childhood, with its' ideals and soft landing places, but it will be a joy of sorts that cannot be taken away by winds that blow both now in the present and the storms that will come in the future.