Losing Home

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I once had a farm in New York.

When I say those words, I think of myself as the main character in the movie “Out of Africa” who had a farm, a life, and lost everything. My father purchased the farm when I was 15 years old. Every weekend, weather permitting, family and friends would gather at the farm to work and have impromptu picnics. One year after our marriage, my husband and I moved into a small house on the farm that had been converted from a barn. We had a Scottish Terrier named Piper and two cats, Charlie Chaplin and Katerina. I had a quarter acre garden and a small greenhouse where I started seedlings and grew babies breath. The house was filled with 90 houseplants and I could look out the windows and see horses grazing in the pastures. It was a time when I was surrounded by family and friends. We had a party or invited guests for dinner every month and the farm was a place where people came to visit and enjoy the pleasures of life in the country.

After two and half years we moved to Kentucky so my husband could continue his education. Our dog and two cats were lost or dead within the year, casualties of our move, and we adopted a stray dog whom we named Heyu. Most of my plants did not survive the move. We lived in a small apartment on the second floor of an older building in a city where I had no family or friends and could not find employment for one year. Nothing of interest was in walking distance, I did not have a car, and I was alone and isolated except for two days a week when I volunteered at a local museum.

As the years passed my husband and I made annual trips back to the farm to visit my parents and extended family, and after my children were born we would visit for the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day and four to six weeks during the summer. Every time I drove through the front gates of the farm a voice inside me would shout “Home” and when we left I would always cry for all I was leaving behind.

After my parents died, my sister and I inherited the farm. My children and I continued to make our summer trips for a few years, but circumstances beyond my control brought those visits to an end. As the years passed, the farm fell into disrepair. Ultimately, I was forced to make the decision to sell the farm to a family member or else risk having it auctioned due to unpaid taxes. In order to save my parents’ legacy, I chose to sell.

All I have left of those happy days are memories, photographs, and a set of coffee mugs my husband gave to me as a gift for one of my birthdays. The mugs are identical to those we had given my parents as a gift with the name of the farm on one side and a picture of a racehorse on the other. Every morning I drink coffee from one of my mugs and think about those days of milk and honey.

"And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise."
~From “Fern Hill” by Dylan Thomas
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~