Going Back to what was Once My Home

I am back home after a week down in Albany, Georgia, my hometown. I have lived away for twenty-five years. The town has moved west into another county, it seems. The weather was mild and sunny, just as I remember it. The clerks and most of the people I met were friendlier than I remembered when I left there in 1995.

The area has been heavily damaged by two tornadoes and a hurricane that demolished some neighborhoods in the past two years. But unlike most towns a long distance from a major highway system, Albany has all the chain restaurants you find in Atlanta because it is the largest and busiest town in southwest Georgia. I was glad to see that the old downtown area is gradually coming back with a beautiful riverfront area. Racially, the town is largely black now as many white families moved west toward Lee County when the schools were integrated back in the sixties.

This is my 90 year old brother, Max and his beautiful birthday cake.

On Saturday, March 30, we celebrated the 90th birthday of my brother, Max. So many people arrived during the afternoon at Merry Acres Inn out by the pool, that I didn't get to speak to many of them although I knew them. Max is father to four sons, and he has a number of grandchildren. His family is wonderful to him, and to their mother, who now has dementia. We all missed her at the party and Max says he misses her all the time. I'm sure he would have loved to have her at the party with him, but she never leaves home now and it would be upsetting to her to take her out.

We were happy that my cousin, Virginia, who is 91 years old, was able to attend the party and go to dinner with all of us that evening.

Max with his best friend, our cousin,Virginia

We call her Ginger, and she is such a delight that everyone who knows her enjoys being with her. She has been living for a short time in a fine Assisted Living Facility, but she has been depressed, so my sister Gay and I visited with her one day and had lunch with her and Margaret, another resident.

The food was excellent. The chef came out to speak to Ginger, and she introduced us.  I was happy to see the caring of staff people, including Brandy and Jonathan. For the most part, my cousin has excellent care. But it is hard to leave a large home with all your belongings and move into two rooms.

After our lunch of barbecue ribs and potato salad, we indulged in chocolate cake with ice cream. we went out on the patio and sat in the warm sunshine for awhile. Jonathan came by to check on Ginger and see if she needed anything. I was pleased to see that. I think there was some concern when we brought her home after the dinner Saturday night.They did not realize she would be out until nearly ten o'clock!

We were in Albany for five nights and had time to spend with my great niece, Carrie. She is an event planner and the party she hosted for her grandfather was tasteful with good food and beautiful flowers on the tables. I know she had some help from her aunt Dale who provided the cake.We all agreed that this was the best gathering of family we have had in a long time. I saw cousins I have not seen in several years and only a couple of the youngest generation were absent. One of them is in the Marines and could not come home.

Perhaps such a milestone in my brother's life touched everyone there, as it did me.
Max is the last of my four brothers that I grew up with and worked with as an adult. I felt a nostalgia I could not shake even as Gay and I drove back to Atlanta and to Hayesville. Tears burned behind my eyelids, but did not fall. I have accepted my losses and the inevitability of death. 

It is hard to return to the place where you grew up with many happy memories of a wonderful mother, a loving family, and know it will never be the same. What is normal for the young ones who live there is abnormal for me. The farm where I played and rode horses, built my dream home and lived with my dear husband for thirty years, doesn't look the same and is not the same. That hurt. I thought, as we left, that the next time I return, if I can return, will likely be for a funeral. I left hoping that generations of the Council family will continue to enjoy the farm my father struggled to purchase in 1942. I hope the family cemetery that he wanted on his farm will always be there and will always be cared for.

I know that, as Thomas Wolfe said, you really can't go home again. It just has to live in memory, and I am happy that I have those memories. I write about them and relive them in that way.