Although I have travelled many places, this particular journey is the strangest I have ever made. I have discovered that in losing a husband, I have lost who I am. Who was I before I took on all the roles of wife, mother, grandmother? Once upon a time, there was a “me” … a girl who whose only roles were daughter and sister.
My journey is back to my childhood, to my home and my 57th school reunion. There are still some of us left and I hope to find what they remember of my earlier years.
An old friend meets me at my destination. She also is now single and like two teenagers we slip back in time and sit up chatting until after midnight, eat breakfast in our pjs and spend the rest of the day browsing the shops. And I discover I am still rather “childlike” in many ways.
“Look at these flowers!” I exclaim as I put my whole face into a bouquet at a street vender and inhale the fragrance. On the west coast, everything is green, green, green.
My friend just shakes her head. “ We’re so used to them, I guess we take them for granted.” I had forgotten the beauty that surrounded my childhood home.
As a youngster I had stripped four branches off a willow tree and pushed them into the ground to make an imaginary boundary to my playhouse. The next day I pulled them out. I can still recall the wonder of that moment. They had taken root! It was a wonder that is still with me each spring as I plant my garden.
Half of my holiday I spent with a couple I had started grade one with. (That has to be some kind of record.) We walked the beach, talked about children’s books we had read, teachers we had liked and those we disliked. Memories like raindrops slid across the windowpane of my mind.
At the reunion one friend asked me “Do you still sing?” as she recalled the many roles I had played in school musicals. Had I really made an impression? I was thunderstruck and yes the church choir was one of my greatest loves. I realized with sadness that I had not sung in the house since my husband died.
That weekend I did find pieces of myself but the puzzle is not yet complete and neither is my life. It will take more than a photo of all of us and chats with school friends to find out who I was and who I will become. But I have learned to be content and happier with who I am right now.
