The Journey...

Looking back through my life I must admit it's been one heck of a journey. The turns, the roadblocks and tumbling hills of my memories all there for me in my mind. I'm lucky to have these memories whether good or bad. Our life's journey is what makes us who we are today. It's how we learn, and how we grow. Facing our mistakes and hoping never to repeat them. Dreaming of a better tomorrow, but not so much that we forget that no matter what is going on life can be good in the present. In the moment that we so often forget to be thankful for. Trying to remember that things can always be worse. There is always someone less fortunate. That is easier said then done though on a day from hell that we all seem to have periodically. And lets face it, we can only basically judge life from where we see it at each moment.
So as I've gone down this journey of life and my time of soul searching I look back over many memories. Memories of going south to a little town called Pippa Passes, Kentucky with my mom and dad to see my grandmothers. Unfortunately I never had the opportunity to know either of my grandpa's. My dad's dad died when he was six years old and my mom's dad died when I was sixteen months old. I did tell my mom about what I thought was a dream of my grandpa and she said it was a memory though. So who says a sixteen month old won't remember? It was of my grandpa packing me in his arms and my brother walking beside us to the hog pins and me peering through the wooden post fence to look at them. It's one memory but one I've held onto all my life. Then there is the little mom and pop gas stations that I use to love our stops at where we were allowed to get a cold pop out of the cooler and a treat of some type. The pop was often luke warm instead of cold and it was generally flavored. I thought it was the best thing though. There were the trips to town and how I awed at it's difference to the towns here in Fort Wayne. The trips to the Ben Franklin store where I couldn't wait to spend my money that mom and dad had given me for the trip. Seeing all the cousins and aunts and uncles and all the large gatherings. Then there was simply sitting on the porch and listening to the stories of days gone by. They were simpler times and all thankfully embedded in my memory and good Lord willing they always will be a part of me. They are a part of my journey that brought me to where I am today. They are a time I look back on with fondness and sometimes long for them to be again, knowing they never will and that this is simply the way it is. Also knowing that I am lucky to have grown up in a time when I could still witness family and friends gathering and simply talking and being together. A time when life was easier, but folks somehow thought the times were hard. A part of my journey in this life.