Feelings

I was ten or twelve years old and was visiting my grandmother's farmhouse for the summer as I did every summer. I loved coming out and spending time with my grandmother. My grandfather died when I was around two, I think. Memories of him are very hazy. I do remember someone sitting in an overstuffed rocking chair. Maybe I was older than two.

My uncle had retired and was living with my grandmother to help take care of her. He had his dog Skipper with him. Skipper was my buddy. We did everything together.

One day, grandma asked me to go downstairs by myself for the first time and get some potatoes out of the storage area. I had been down there many times with grandma when we would sand the rough bumps off of the eggs that we had gathered that morning. We also checked them under a bright light ( to make sure that there were no chicks growing inside the shell). At that time they were selling the eggs.

I opened up the heavy flat door that led down into the basement and secured it to the side of the wall. The basement was the length of the house. I was a little nervous when I started to go down the stairs. It brought back memories of another house that we had been renting, with a small basement that I had refused to go down into. I had felt something bad emitting from within its depths. My mother could never understand why I would not go down there.

But, here at grandma's house, it was different. I remembered that to the left of the stairs was where the potatoes were kept, and other items of food that could be stored there. (Every year grandma had a large garden and lots of vegetables were kept down here).

To the right of the stairs was grandpa's workshop.He had been a carpenter and had died when I was a little girl. He had built this house and the surrounding buildings which included the chicken house, milk house and the cattle barn.

I continued down the long basement, seeing the furnace area on the right, and the rest of the basement contained old furniture and here my memory fades as to what else was down there.

But, my best memory of the basement was that I felt my grandfather's presence as I was near his workshop area. It was a sense of peace, a calmness, a feeling that everything was okay. I was safe, nothing was going to hurt me.

I am writing from my memory of childhood experiences at my grandmother's farmhouse. The summers that I had spent there between 10 and 12 years old .Gathering eggs from the hens in the henhouse, climbing on the hay bales, (until I saw a spider), the milk house where the milk from the cows was processed.

Isn't it funny, how when we get older, we start reminiscing about our past, good or bad?