Getting Back to Your Roots

“It’s time to get back to our roots.”  I have heard this numerous times but never quite understood the true significance of it until I had the chance to do this very thing. When the opportunity arose for me to live this philosophy, even briefly, I cannot say that my initial reaction was one of excitement but rather one of compelling obligation. This will be good for me and I will get something out of this – that sort of thing.  And so, I went back to my roots.

Shortly after losing both parents, my siblings and I felt we should do something together, just the seven of us, as a way to reconnect with one another.  Since we still had not visited our parents grave-sites as they were laid to rest in a different part of the country, we felt this to be a relevant enough reason to not only reconnect and honor our parents, but experience the “getting back to our roots” concept.  We could all meet for a 3-day weekend, visit our parents headstones at the family plot and as an added bonus, since the cemetery happened to be in the same area, visit our childhood home, the only home that all seven of us lived in together at the same time.  We would visit both of our grandparents homes, and reconnect with a few long-lost relatives  This trip would be steeped in memories for all of us and a part of our psyche that only we shared. Again, my initial reaction was not one of glee, but one of ‘this will be good for me.”

We gave our trip a title and began planning the “Fee Family Most Excellent Adventure”.  The excitement began to simmer as the plans progressed.  Commandeered by eldest big brother, and full Colonel (a helpful criteria), we were all given different and various assignments; a few had to reach out to long-lost relatives to plan lunch, some to contact the new residents of our grandparents former home to arrange a tour, a few to map out the driving routes and so on.  Being together is key, so we rented a “BAV” – a big ass van to transport the seven of us.  We also all stayed at the same hotel – 5 girls in two rooms and the boys in another.  The big ground rule we had was no spouses. This was a time to experience and be who we once were before life eventually defined us a mother, wife, father and husband.  On this trip, we were once again children.  Flights were arranged, we had a rendezvous meeting point at the airport, and the “most excellent adventure” began. While in the van, the girls drove the boys crazy with our incessant chatter – the boys up front commandeered the vehicle as we shouted out –
” remember this…remember that?”

The trip began with a visit to the cemetery.  It might be my generation, but it seems to me that more and more people are opting to be cremated and scatter loved one’s ashes rather than having a traditional headstone in a family plot. I subscribe to this theory of scattering ashes, but I must say that seeing my parents names etched in stone and laying aside their family members was very moving for me and actually filled me with joy, an emotion I was surprised to feel.  Having this dedicated place to honor my parents respects their memory and provides a place to remember and reflect. The seven of us had our own memorial, standing in a circle and holding hands, and each taking turns speaking, reading a memento, or just being silent for a moment or two.

And so it went.  We visited our childhood home and did the usual – took photos outside of where we went to school, drove past old friends homes and another very special thing – we found the old swimming hole.  We had to hike back by the river in mud and leaves, but we found what remained of the diving board, the shuffleboard set and the swing-set. 
I found myself thinking – did I really live here?  It seems like an eternity ago – and made me realize how fast life goes – what were my memories and my life at one point are now just mud, leaves and old rusty metal pipes.  When we visited the church we grew up in, the icing on the cake was bumping into someone we had known 40 years ago – imagine that! We were given a tour of our Grandmother’s home by the new owner, and to get there, we drove the route we always took to get to Grandma’s house.  As we were driving on the twisting and turning roads, I found myself staring out the window just like when I was a kid, looking at all the familiar landmarks along the way.  The memories came flooding in, and to paraphrase a line from the movie “Field of Dreams”…the memories will be so thick you will have to brush them from your face…  Upon walking around my former Grandmother’s home, everything there was just as it was.  The back yard ivy and cellar door are still there and look the same.

and it’ll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they’ll have to brush them away from their faces.

There really only was one sobering moment, at least for me, and that was the visit to my “Lake Grandma’s” house.  She was my father’s mother and we visited her often.  It was there that I have the most vivid childhood memories.  We would walk up the road to get water from the pump, eat meals outside in the rock wall garden, take the row-boat out on the lake and go fishing, and swim all day long.  Her house had two separate smaller houses – one was a log cabin which my father and his brothers lived in, and the other was my Aunt Ellen’s house.  The three houses had been torn down and replaced with a rather large edifice.  There was not one thing that looked the same, so we walked over to the neighbors and I took a photo looking down at the lake where the log cabin stood – now and then.

After the trip ended, I was not only happy we made the pilgrimage, I was glowing about it.  This trip was not about tracing our family lineage back to the stone age, but rather delving into childhood memories that have made us what we are today.  This seemed to be a significant part of the healing process and provided a sense of unity for all of us. It was such an enriching travel experience that has since added a new dimension to life for me. The trek to our “roots” was so interwoven with emotion, that it became a journey in both senses of the word – physical and personal. It was one of the most re-affirming experiences of my life.