Memorial Day Anniversary

This is a big holiday weekend and people are traveling like crazy. 

I will not be leaving home but did have a wonderful time with some good friends yesterday. We met at a local restaurant where we could sit outside. All of us have been vaccinated so we were comfortable with hugging again and just being together. I had missed that connection but didn't realize how much I would enjoy it. Now that we have found a good location, I plan to do more of that this summer. 

Memorial Day is a national holiday to remember fallen soldiers who were members of the United States Armed Forces. 

Several of my family and some of my friends lost their lives in war, and I always feel a sadness when I think of them and their sacrifice. But this holiday which comes at the end of May, holds personal memories for me.

Memorial Day weekend will always hold a special place in my heart and my memory. On Memorial Day weekend, 1995, twenty-six years ago, Barry and I moved here to the mountains of North Carolina.

We left a three thousand square foot home we had built and which we loved. It was located on the farm land given to us by my father. He bought this land in 1942.

Barry and I had lived there for twenty-five years, and I thought we would always be there. But our lives changed when my parents died and when the family business was sold. Looking back I realize it was one of the best changes in my life.

From early 1995, we had been searching for a house to rent in north Georgia near Lake Chatuge. After several trips to the region, we settled on a vacation home on the north end of the lake, owned by an older couple from Florida. This house was in North Carolina. It was not meant to be our permanent home, but one we would live in while trying out our new situation. We had to purchase instead of renting because we had our beloved dog, Kodi, a Samoyed, and no one would rent to us.

This little house had 1,000 square feet on the upper level, the living area, and had a daylight basement with only side walls and front sliding doors.

In the living level we had two bedrooms and two baths. The selling point for this house was the view from the upper deck where we sat with the birds high above the ground. We could see ourselves relaxing in our chairs and watching boats on the lake while enjoying the cool breezes that ruffled the hardwoods surrounding us on three sides. 

View from our upper deck in 1995. On a clear day we could see Brasstown Bald over in Georgia

On that long weekend, 1995, my brother and his sons came over and helped load our U-Haul for the final trip to North Carolina. 

Although we still owned the house, we had it listed with a real estate agent. I can't begin to describe the sadness that came over me as we drove away from everything that had been home my entire life. I knew I would come back, and I would even stay in my house before it was signed over to another, but that day sealed the deal and we were definitely leaving the farm, my childhood home, and my wonderful dream house. We had carved our setting out of the woods, doing most of the work ourselves. For years after we left, I dreamed about the house.

I wrote a poem a few years later explaining how I felt about this change in my life.

Splintered
by Glenda Council Beall

The cleaver fell
and split her head-to-toe.
Racked by horrendous pain,
she continued to exist;
half her heart left behind,
the other half in the new place.

Part of her brain stayed
to store up more memories.
The other part tries to understand
what to do with this end of life.
One foot can't walk without the other
so she spins in place.

One hand waved a sad goodbye,
the other is useless here,
where both are needed
just to unpack.

Torn asunder, like the division
of conjoined twins who share
the same heart and brain,
neither part of her can live this way.

There will be a day when she
will suture her selves together
using needles of confidence,
threads of experience,
and settle both halves here,
but the scar will remain forever.

After the house on the farm was sold, we thought hard about looking for another larger place. But we had fallen in love with the location, the privacy, the quietness that was so like our home in Georgia.We both wanted to stay in our little house and make it more comfortable for us. 

First we created a new driveway, one that circled our house so we could park on the upper level instead of having to walk up about forty steps to bring in groceries. We put in a carport so we could park on the living level instead of in the garage down on the lower level. 

With Barry working from home much of the time, he needed an office. We finished the basement and made an area for him there. Later we built a bedroom and a large bathroom down there. That area would eventually become my writing studio after Barry was gone. We moved the laundry room upstairs where we also incuded a large pantry. I imagine we spent as much on improvements as we paid for the house. But it is a place I love and Barry loved. He didn't feel the need to travel or go on vacation. "Why would I want to go anywhere when I live in the best place to relax, to enjoy the lake and the mountain views?" He only traveled because I wanted to.

One of our major fears in life is change. 

I was always one who could live in a rut my whole life and not make changes. But leaving home, moving hundreds of miles away from home, turned out to be the best thing we ever did. Barry and I had fifteen years here in this house and they were the happiest years of our lives together. Unlike my sisters who both left home when they married, I had stayed and taken on duties of caring for my parents as they aged, made my own home near them and near where I had grown up. But I was not completely happy. I always had a feeling I was missing something. 

Here in the mountains, I found what had been missing. My life changed drastically, our marriage even changed as we had more time alone together. We sat on our deck and talked about things we had never discussed before. I think we came to know each other better.  We had no one else to spend time with, no one to interrupt our plans or call in need. We thoroughly enjoyed the company of each other as we traveled around the area in Barry's Jeep Wrangler, or made day trips to other cities and states. Barry always had his camera with him and made beautiful photos I cherish today.

This Memorial Day, I will drink a toast to the best change I ever made and to my dear husband, Barry Beall, who made it possible. 

Having a picnic on a rushing stream in the mountains. A happy time.

I hope you all are having a great holiday weekend. Please be safe and enjoy your family and friends and I hope everyone will be vaccinated for COVID.

Be grateful for your blessings and do what you can to help those who need it.

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