McDaniel Musings: I Left Pieces of My Heart in Texas

Well here it is, the final post from our big summer trip. The big one. The reason we drove all those miles, spent all those hours in the car, and headed for the hot, humid south. Here, finally, is the post about our visit with my Dad!

We first started talking about the big trip in about April. Since we were driving all the way to Southern Utah to take Grandpa's ashes, I mentioned to Matt, "Hey! We're going to be quite a ways South already...why don't we drive another day or two and go to Texas?" After some talking and planning, it was settled: we would be making the long drive this summer to the land of my birth.

You know all the rest of the story already, so I'll pick up where I left off in the last blog post: after we went to dinner with my Grandpa Don and Evalena, we headed out on the 3 hour drive to my Dad's place. It was already 8:30 at night, and we knew we had a long drive ahead of us and wouldn't be getting in until about midnight. Luckily, the kiddos fell asleep on the way, so we got into our motel, put the kids to bed, and crashed with the plan to meet my Dad for breakfast in the morning.

We slept in a little later than we wanted to (though I must say it was a welcome rest after the late night of driving). Dad met us at our motel, and we drove over to a fantastic little home-cookin' breakfast place. The food was delicious but the company was even better. It was so great to see my Dad!

After breakfast we followed Dad (and trusty Rusty, who goes everywhere with him) back to his house. As we were driving up, we looked around at all the beautiful greenery, the lovely pond, the space, the perfect trees all under the beautiful Texas sky. However, our conversation didn't revolve around the beauty of the place. The first thing that was said was, "Is that a bouncy-house in front of your Dad's place?" Haha! Sure enough, he had rented a bounce-house much to the kid's (and my!!!) delight. At first they didn't notice: they simply walked around the big colorful patch of plastic on the ground (it wasn't inflated yet), and spent some time exploring, swinging on the tire swing, and walking around the pond. Audrey and Kellen were for some reason fascinated with the little structure that sits near the pond, going in and out of it's doors over and over and over again, entertaining themselves while the three of us stood around catching up.

After some visiting and more catching up, it was time to inflate the bouncy house!!! You should have seen the eyes of a two and four year old light up at the sight of the big colorful structure as it grew from a flat nothing to a big beautiful castle!! They jumped right in, and by then it was time for lunch.

If there's one thing that HAS to happen when I'm in Texas at my Dad's house, it is that my Dad has to barbecue for me. I don't think I have ever visited him when he hasn't fired up the coal grill and created a Chuck masterpiece. And, he just happened to barbecue one of my favorites - bratwurst! Delicious!!

After lunch, time was spent admiring the beauty of our surroundings, the kids jumping, running, digging in the dirt, swinging - and me getting to look at hundreds of old pictures, most of which I had never seen before. My dad had boxes filled with books of treasured photographs, and I spent a lot of time looking through them, remembering, learning, and looking back.

Dad spent time playing with the kiddos, coloring, pushing them on the tire swing, and picking tomatoes! At one point Kellen got hold of his water mug and refused to let go of it, so Dad decided he better not fight it: it became Kellen's mug. :)

As the afternoon turned into early evening, we decided to call it at night. Dad likes to retire a little early so he can get up and do work before the Texas heat takes over. We headed back into town and rested up to be up for breakfast the next morning.

After breakfast I was fortunate to get to spend some time alone with Dad. Matt took the kids to go get the oil changed, fill up on gas and let Dad and I have a little while to ourselves, which was wonderful. We spent some more time looking through old photographs and talking about the past.

Matt and the kids pulled up after a while, and I knew it was time to say goodbye. I wanted more time. I could have spent weeks out there under the Texas sky in the quiet solitude of the land, relaxing and visiting (and enjoying more bbq!). But, another goodbye had to happen, and it wasn't any easier than any other time before.

There's so much more that goes into visiting loved ones than can be expressed in a blog - the feelings and emotions and visits to the past and discussions of the future, intangible things that can only be felt from within. The entire trip was something of an emotional roller-coaster for me. Many tears were shed between Idaho and Texas and back again, most of which Matt, my rock, was the only witness too. Goodbyes always hurt, whether or not they are permanent (Grandpa Nick - and even then I guess "permanent" needs to be redefined) or only for a little while. Sometimes after a goodbye, you wonder if there will ever get to be another meeting. I know there will be with my Dad, but that may not be the case with every loved one I got to see on my trip.

There's never enough time. I wanted more than a few hours with my Grandpa Don. I wanted more than a day and a half with my Dad. I wanted more than 11 days for our trip. I wanted more time visiting, loving, just being with each other. Even now the flood gates threaten to burst as I think back to my visits, and wanting more time. But it has to be enough, and I am grateful for the time I had to visit with everyone.

Sometimes I feel like so much is lost being so far apart from loved ones. It always makes me think about the what-ifs. What if we had stayed in Texas? What would my life be? Would I still have met Matt? Would I have made the same choices? What was lost over the years of not staying there? I'll never know the answers to these questions, but they still remain with me. It brings to mind a great quote from a book I recently finished: "We yearn for what we have lost. But sometimes, we forget what we have." That is from Mitch Albom's The Timekeeper (which I highly recommend everyone should read). In all that may have been lost, I am so grateful for what I have, and the time that I had with my family over the course of the entire trip.

This trip meant more to me than any trips I have taken in the past. I got to share my past with my husband and my children. Where I am from, family they have never met before. There were loving exciting "hellos" and aching "goodbyes", but all of them, from the moment we walked out our door until the time we walked back through it, were precious to me. I would love to go back and do it all over again, all the miles, all the hours, all the hugs, all the tears. I will carry that trip with me forever.

When we were driving away from my Dad's house, I really felt the finality of the trip, even though we still had several days of driving ahead of us. All that we wanted to accomplish had been accomplished, and now it was what could have been the lonely drive home after all those hours of visiting. Luckily for me, I have my beautiful family to keep me company and make even more memories with.

I hope that everyone that I visited with, and most especially my Dad, knows how much I loved spending time with them, hugging them, sharing tears with them, making memories. It's a trip I will never, ever forget. And I will make that trip again, at another time, a few years down the line. Things will change, people will change, some people may be gone by then, but my love for them and my memories of them will never change no matter how much time passes.

Until then.......