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\nBut they are only present on those \u201cin memory of\u201d labels now.<\/p>\nNow there are strange new backs of heads in their place.<\/p>\n
Now, outside, the man has wandered off on his own. The service has ended and he stands, soaking in the unusually warm sun, fixing his gaze down valley. About a mile away, he has found what he once considered his Valhalla. There, just beyond a steep hill, lay his grandparents\u2019 little house and cattle farm. Nestled beautifully at the foot of the mountain that looms sentinel over the valley sits the home his grandfather had built\u2013the home where his father had been born and raised\u2013the home of his heart. There was a time when this place literally made him ache for it. He had spent nearly every holiday\u00a0here as a child. A lion\u2019s share of his fondest childhood memories were anchored here. There was a time when he felt this place held the magic stuff that made him tick. There was a time.<\/p>\n
Standing here now, the man is searching for that connection to this place. He is somewhat bewildered that he isn\u2019t feeling what he expected to feel. Truthfully, he half expected that when he came over here to drink in this view he might find himself choking back strong emotions\u2026yet, the emotion he is feeling is of a very different kind. What he feels is a deep understanding. He understands that his connection to this place was people. The farm he loved so much that lies a mile down the road there is home to strangers now. Now that is just another familiar place. A beautiful familiar place. The people, the family, that made that place so special are gone on to a new home now.<\/p>\n
As I stood there, outside that little church so steeped in my family history, looking down the valley towards my grandparents\u2019 farm\u2026my dad\u2019s home place, I was suddenly aware that I had a new appreciation for an old adage I had heard my whole life but never truly understood. You can\u2019t go home again<\/em>. Much as my dear grandparents\u2019 bodies were only shells that had housed their beautiful souls, so too, I now knew, that farm was just a shell which housed my beautiful memories. I can visit those memories whenever I want and they will never lose their luster, unlike that farm. It has been five\u00a0years now since grandpa passed and that lovely little farm passed from our family\u2019s control a short while after that. It was a tough thing to let go. It was a really tough thing. But, standing there outside the church that\u00a0Sunday, I finally let go.<\/p>\nThen I went home.<\/p>\n
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\u00a0 On an unseasonably mild, late December Sunday afternoon, a middle aged man stands in solitude outside a tiny country church in Southern Appalachia. He isn\u2019t by himself. His family and several other church goers are mingling and milling about in the parking lot nearby but, for a few stolen moments, he is completely alone. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3002,"featured_media":2769,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[149,267],"class_list":["post-399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-family","tag-you-cant-go-home-again"],"yoast_head":"\n
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