When I was young, my mother and I visited Nebraska every couple of years. I no longer remember how we got there (my mother didn’t drive) but she would save up her vacation days and we would leave behind the mountains of Colorado for the farmlands of Nebraska and go to see my sister and two brothers and their families.  

I liked it because I got to play with my nieces and nephews – all around my age.  It was on one of these trips that I learned to ride a two-wheeler on Jolene’s brand new bike which she had won by selling the most subscriptions to the local small-town newspaper. I also drove a truck here for the first time (right into the ditch) – I think I was twelve and the only one among us who had not already spent a couple of years behind the wheel during harvest time. And of course I got to ride horses.  Such adventures for a girl from the city.

All in all it was a grand way to spend a summer vacation. Except on the day we would go “visiting”.  On this day I would accompany my mother to visit my aunts and uncles – the siblings of my parents – who were older than God and had no children who were not also old,  and in my “I am the center of the universe” way of thinking led very dull and uninteresting lives. We would go from house to house – small town to small town – and at each stop along the way the old people sat at the kitchen table or sometimes on the living room sofa drinking coffee or iced tea and I would sprawl on the floor in front the fan turned to high to move the hot summer air.  The whirring of the blades all but drowned out the hum of their voices, but I picked up little bits here and there.

“Where is Sonny now and what’s he doing?  And what about Margaret?”

“That hail storm really tore up Dean’s place. He ended up havin’ to reroof the barn.  Remember that storm out at Dad’s place that year and the Frenchman River rose and flooded everything out?”

“Did I tell you Lila Rae got a promotion at the hospital?  She’s doin’ real good.”

“How many head of cattle does Charles have out in the feed lot now? Hope cattle prices hold steady this year.”

“Myrtle was in the hospital last month.  They can’t seem to figure out what’s wrong.”

“Have you been out by the old Wise place?  It got resold again a couple years ago.  Remember when you and Ray moved out there?  What year was that?

And so it went. . .  

I dreaded these “visiting days”.  But now I understand. These days  gave life to my mother.  They were her stories and these were her people.  They connected her to her past – to a shared origin and a way of being.  I just didn’t appreciate it.  How could I?

But now I get it.  

This summer my nieces and nephews will gather together back in the heartland and we will spend a great deal of time “visiting”.  We will connect to our shared stories, our common heritage, and our past.  We are now the grandparents, the “old people” and our stories will call to mind the days of our childhood and our parents and the generations past.  And I will want to tell the younger generation – pay attention – these stories matter.  But I won’t. Because they are building their own stories – and maybe this gathering will be one of them.  And someday, though they won’t remember the particulars, they might remember the sound of the voices and the whir of the air conditioner.  One can hope.