My father told of walking in the early 1950s across the yard beside what is now my home to reach Dr. Wills’ barn and pick up a gallon of fresh milk from his Jersey cows. As he told me the story, I could almost see him and his brother, my Uncle Edward, striding across this very field and then my yard.
I stood in the field this afternoon, soaking in the spring warmth and letting the memories wash over me.
I never knew, until the last years of his life, that Dad had ever been to this little town before my brothers and I settled here after leaving South Texas in the seventies.
I think I understand, a little, why it felt so much like coming home when I first visited here. It has never felt different in the nearly half-century since.
But, I wonder sometimes if that’s a little how it will feel to walk into our forever home.
I think it might.
Home. Where we belong.
I hope it’ll be springtime. With two brothers carrying bottles of fresh milk home for breakfast.
And wildflowers everywhere.
© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2023. All Rights Reserved.