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for the future Earlier this week when my father and I were walking around outside enjoying the summer weather, he said something to me that put part of my life into a new focus. He told me that he was the same age today as my grandfather was years ago when my grandfather bought the land where we were staying. That simple piece of information took some time for me to process. From my perspective, I cannot remember a time when the property wasn't in the family. For me it has always existed in some form or another. Yet my dad clearly remembers when it was something new if not daring that was introduced into the family. My grandparents had spent most of their lives living in the city and here they were willing to move into the woods of northern Wisconsin hours away from the rest of their family. The nearest store was twenty minutes away by car and that would be in good weather. It had to be a mild from of culture shock, but I guess that that was what they wanted. Today it isn't that uncommon for people to retire somewhere else, but I have to wonder if that was more of a novelty forty years ago. Plus it wasn't as though they were moving to Florida to join some retirement community where I suspect that living is easy. No, they decided to go the other direction where winters can be harsh and isolation is quite common. Naturally when they bought the property there was nothing there except for trees and the lake. I might even go so far as to say that the land was still wild to a small degree. Things have changed dramatically since that time. Obviously the lake is still here, but sadly many of the trees have been cut down either to make room for the house or have died over the years. Not only did the people living on the land, my family, change over time, but so did the land itself. I have a feeling that my dad is starting to feel his age and this often comes through in the comments that he makes to me. A recent example happened when we went to the back part of the lot to look for small trees to transplant closer to the house. Once a few were selected we brought them back with us and put them into freshly dug holes. It was then that he said that he probably wouldn't live long enough to see them get big. I knew what he meant, but at the same time it was odd hearing him say it. Knowing that the world around us will continue to exist after we die is not that hard of a concept to grasp, but when a person can look back on his or her life and see all that has changed around them, the brevity of life does become painfully obvious. My hope is that I will live to see the pine saplings that my dad and I planted grow to be taller than me and even the house. I want that small piece of land to be a connection of sorts. Over the years my parents have moved, yet that simple house next to the lake has always been there for me. It's something that I have come to trust and expect to see until I die. Not having that place in my life would change me in some way and I don't want that to happen. Some cultures believe that land isn't something that can be truly owned, but part of me desperately wants that simple little house to be around long after I have died. I want it to be something that my siblings children and possibly my own have to remember me by in some way. By world standards America is still a young country and people here often gawk at what passed for every day life in colonial times, so I want something from the twentieth century to endure into the future. This rambling if not completely muddled entry didn't come out nearly as well as I had hoped. I seemed to get mired in talking about trees more than anything else. I guess what I really wanted to say is that I know that I am getting older and I am starting to wonder what kind of legacy if any I will have for my children. Is that sad to be concerned about such a thing? No, that isn't what I meant to say either. I just wanted to express how much I appreciate what my family has done for me over the years and I want to return that favor to them somehow. |