It is years past its glory days but those days were the most
precious to me. Now the old barn must be
torn down and along with it go some of my dearest childhood memories.
The barn was a mysterious, lovely place to all the children
who came to it. Our friends found it
fascinating and we were proud to show them our hideouts, our secret meeting
places and the wonderful treasures inside.
It was a dark place so you weren’t sure what lay too far back in its
corners but yet it was comforting at the same time. It was a home to the sweet smelling feed
barrels, horse saddles and bridles, and old garden equipment, dusty and rusty
from lack of use.
The barn’s tin roof was a refuge from the sun and was
musically alive when rain would fall. The
hayloft was filled with rectangular bales of hay that my sisters and I loved to
sit upon and hold our secret country club meetings. We would open the loft door
and look over the barnyard area as we repeated our pledges and made plans for
the future. It seemed huge and vast and
we felt like we had a handle on the world.
The connections my sisters and I made then will last always.
The cows and horses would eat below the loft and as we
brushed them we had dreams of grandeur.
It was a privilege to be the one who pushed the hay from the loft onto
the waiting animals below. Chickens
(while hated by us girls) would strut in and out of the barn and seemed to
delight in flying from a perch and scaring us.
Kittens, puppies and even rabbits all had a home at one time in the old
sanctuary.
Years have passed by and the animals have all gone. Mom has been unable to care for the barn or
make any repairs and each passing year has taken its toll on the old barn. The tin has mostly blown away from the roof,
the wood has become weak and rotted, and the color has all but faded away.
I pay a tribute to the old place. I have never found a solace quite like the
one I had in the loft and barn and I think my sisters feel the same. We dreamt
of the future and thought things would go on forever just as they were
then. While those adventures were years
ago, the tears of loss flow easily and mournfully today. When we lose a childhood landmark, it brings
a sense of reality and reckoning that we are changing too. Maybe that’s the hardest part.
