Photography by Matt.
This photo was taken at the old family farm. We went there last week for a visit to my relatives. I miss that place so much, where most Saturdays I’d go there to help out. It was a dairy farm for the most parts, but at times also ran beef cattle and other assorted livestock.
The family lives in a newly built house a little way down the front paddock, but this photo is of the doormat at the entrance to the old house. It hasn’t been that many years since they moved into the new house, so I was amazed to see just how quickly the garden moved in to overtake the house. The once clear view from the lounge room window is now obscured by masses of trees. Ferny tendrils have pushed in under windowsills.
The sight of the doormat really affected me. Perhaps it’s because I remember it as a fully intact mat. I’m pretty sure it used to say, “Love is… a warm welcome,” with a cutesy image of two naked people hugging. An innocent image, not smutty – just to clarify that! Now here it was, ripped in half, in tatters, obscured by the leaves and plants that encroached on the old house.
How many times had I once crossed over that mat, stepped indoors – without knocking on the door – and run down to greet my grandparents in there? Like I said, I was usually there on a weekly basis through my childhood. We had grown up in the town just 15 or 20 minutes’ drive away. Now, here I was, only six or seven years since I last stepped inside that particular house, and feeling just how quickly things had moved on. The day prior to last week’s farm visit would’ve been my grandfather’s 87 th birthday – but he passed away in September 2007. It really hit me – he wasn’t there anymore. Because I had become quite ill shortly after his death, I had not spent time grieving. Now, it was beginning to well up within me, this immeasurable sense of loss.
In the last few years since I first moved out of my parents’ home, I have lost both my grandfathers. It is still astoundingly painful, at times, when I reflect on their loss. They were such an integral part of my life, and now there is this gaping spiritual hole where they once were.
This grandad, the one from the farm, was a big part of my life. How grateful I was to have him in my life for almost 26 years. Not only did we see him regularly at the farm, he was sports teacher at my school, and a swimming coach at the local swimming pool. I often attended mass with him on a Sunday morning, where he’d always buy me a large bag of mixed lollies. We would often talk, and I’d listen to his tales of fighting in the Second World War.
My other grandad, the one who lived just around the corner in our country town, was the local public school principal (I went to the Catholic school). He would often take us on day trips to various sights, whether impromptu visits to the beach (about 20 minutes away), to movies, or tourist attractions. He helped me develop a thirst for learning that he demonstrated throughout his life. He passed away when I was barely 20 years old, and I’m so grateful that one of the last few times I saw him alive was at my wedding, the first day in a long time that I had seen him outside hospital. He died relatively young, in his 60s, and it was a tragic and unexpected passing.
I can’t explain how much I miss my grandfathers. I feel so sad that my own children never really got to know their great-grandfathers. I was pregnant with my eldest when the first grandfather passed away. My children did get to meet farm grandad, though, something for which I am grateful. Their great-grandfathers on their father’s side had died many years ago, well before I met my husband.
It often strikes me just how quickly time moves on. It reminds me of that C.S. Lewis quote, where he says that the only reason we ought to be surprised at time is if, ultimately, we’re called to be eternal beings.
From the Bible:
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.
(Today’s New International Version, from http://bible.crosswalk.com/)
This bunny drawing is available full-colour on various coloured and style t-shirts.
The Amalgamation 