The Farm
There’s a place that lives in my mind more vivid and vibrant than any other place I’ve been. A place that’s mostly gone now. The farm- we called it. I’ve traveled all over the world, but for a girl that loves to adventure, this place will always be the place my mind wanders to. Because as a little girl, this is the place where my imagination came alive. Where words spilled out in journals, where the sounds of a summer night lulled me to sleep as the wind softly (and sometimes not so softly) whipped the curtains in and out through the dirty screens. Nothing was safe from the field mist that left a soft layer of dirt on everything. Cleaning the windowsills was a pastime there. So was killing flies, (grandma gave 5 cents a fly smashed) making applesauce, snapping beans, catching fireflies, searching for barn kitties, and eating. So much eating. Potato salad and baked beans and sweet corn and mashed potatoes because yeah, it was the Midwest. Can you imagine a more magical place for a girl? Christmas’s were piles of mattresses on floors, with girls in one room, boys in another and all the adults filling the rest of the rooms. When I think back now, where did we all sleep? And I always remember my grandma saying “keep your towel!” Because 40 people and towels must be some kind of nightmare. And we’d rip open presents in the big family room fireside then the girls would move to the living room to get their own personal Madame Alexander doll picked by grandma tailored to our interests.
Then games and games and the adults talking about adult things.
Was it all a dream?
Or did these things happen and did these people exist together for a time? As families grew and changed we all went to the farm with our own separate families at separate times. Over the years the paint faded and the grass grew between the brick sidewalks, and things changed. It happened without me knowing although the milestones there never failed to remind me time was slipping.
Marrying my best friend in the front yard
The first time I brought my baby there
.heic)
Then games and games and the adults talking about adult things.
Was it all a dream?
Or did these things happen and did these people exist together for a time? As families grew and changed we all went to the farm with our own separate families at separate times. Over the years the paint faded and the grass grew between the brick sidewalks, and things changed. It happened without me knowing although the milestones there never failed to remind me time was slipping.
Marrying my best friend in the front yard
The first time I brought my baby there
My sister's engagement in the barn
Standing by my sister in the pool yard for her wedding
The auction where we had to buy any heirlooms we didn't want to see sold to a stranger
Our last family day at the farm with drone shots. Tears as we pulled out of the driveway one last time, the crackle of gravel under our tires fading away into memory.
That’s when you could feel that time had passed and was passing quicker than any of us wanted.
I went back after the tornado. We walked on the foundations of the shed and the barn, over 100 years old, blown away in the early hours of an Indiana morning. Like it was never there. Like we were never there.
As I walked on the foundations of what was - I thought about what is.
The patriarch and matriarch that are aging but still with us in their quiet chairs.
The lines around my own eyes that set in deeper as I make my way through middle age.
The babies that were born and rocked in my great grandmas rocking chair that call each other on their cell phones.
But what "is" won't be forever and now that the farm is gone in some sense of the word, I know other people and places will be gone too. And I think the time is soon that my grandpa will be gone because I saw him weep over the buildings that were lost "I never want to go back there" he said and then, "I want to go home". So I think the time is near and he is headed towards heaven, and I know he will be only in our memories too. And the farm will always hold this little special corner of my heart where I will visit when life gets hard. When I want to remember life can be simple. When I want to remember that hard work and faith and generosity will leave a legacy of my own someday. Something that will live on past physical places or even my physical body. Because it really wasn't the place that changed us, it was the people. The family, imperfect and flawed as we are, we were together, and we believed in something bigger than the place. That's the legacy I want to live on in me, and my children, and my children's children.
Standing by my sister in the pool yard for her wedding
The auction where we had to buy any heirlooms we didn't want to see sold to a stranger
Our last family day at the farm with drone shots. Tears as we pulled out of the driveway one last time, the crackle of gravel under our tires fading away into memory.
That’s when you could feel that time had passed and was passing quicker than any of us wanted.
I went back after the tornado. We walked on the foundations of the shed and the barn, over 100 years old, blown away in the early hours of an Indiana morning. Like it was never there. Like we were never there.
As I walked on the foundations of what was - I thought about what is.
The patriarch and matriarch that are aging but still with us in their quiet chairs.
The lines around my own eyes that set in deeper as I make my way through middle age.
The babies that were born and rocked in my great grandmas rocking chair that call each other on their cell phones.
But what "is" won't be forever and now that the farm is gone in some sense of the word, I know other people and places will be gone too. And I think the time is soon that my grandpa will be gone because I saw him weep over the buildings that were lost "I never want to go back there" he said and then, "I want to go home". So I think the time is near and he is headed towards heaven, and I know he will be only in our memories too. And the farm will always hold this little special corner of my heart where I will visit when life gets hard. When I want to remember life can be simple. When I want to remember that hard work and faith and generosity will leave a legacy of my own someday. Something that will live on past physical places or even my physical body. Because it really wasn't the place that changed us, it was the people. The family, imperfect and flawed as we are, we were together, and we believed in something bigger than the place. That's the legacy I want to live on in me, and my children, and my children's children.
After Melissa's wedding
Max loved to explore at the farm
Gram waving goodbye as we pulled out for the very last time
Lucy playing on the kitchen stairs
Me playing on the kitchen stairs
Last weekend on the farm
Trying to remember this moment, last weekend with Gram and Granpa on the farm
Mom and Dad lived on the farm for 8 years to help Gram and Granpa- we lived in Indy for some of that time so Max got to spend a lot of time there
Tony's mom, sister and our nieces visiting the farm
Breakfast at the kitchen counter will always be a favorite memory
Knee high by the 4th of July (they were probably about knee high too here)
Three generations
My sweet Gram and my first visit with Max to the farm
Matching hoodies and matching the Grey Barn
The first great grandkids in our family
Newly Engaged
Melis and Spence getting engaged in the barn
Nothing like sunsets at the farm
Lucy won't remember the farm but I remember her there
That wallpaper game at the farm was always strong
Three generations (lady edition)
Max watching the barn kitties
The farm in it's "hay" day
Our wedding 2007
What's left of the Grey Barn
What's left of the shed where Melis and Spence got married
Grain bin gone
.heic)
View from the front yard where we got married
Front walk lantern looking old and broken, the house and bathhouse are still standing with some damage and the youngest Frey cousin Shane (the only male cousin to carry on the Frey name) and his wife Suzanne and their three girls will be moving in soon. Full circle.