Memories of What Once Was

An old man and his twelve year old grandson sit in a old Ford truck on a ridge looking out over the landscape. A large dust devil winds it’s way across the long forgotten fields jumping over the broken crumbling irrigation ditches. A dilapidated old farm house stood in the distance. “All of this was once ours” the old man said. “Really? Who would want this?” The boy asked incredulously. The old man smiled down at him paternally and chuckled. “It didn’t always look this way” he said.

The old man reached into his shirt pocket with a work worn hand and pulled out a photograph. He handed it to the boy. The boy looked at the photo and saw a veritable Eden. The fields were lush, green, and bountiful. The house was a Spanish adobe ranch style house that was painted white and had a red tiled roof. There was a small orchard in the back yard and lush rose garden in the front of the house. “This is what the farm looked like thirty years ago” the old man told the boy. The boy just looked at the photo in disbelief.

The old man drove the truck down to the abandoned house and parked. “Walk with me awhile” he said to the boy as he stepped out of the truck. They jumped over a ditch and walk out in to the desolate field. The field was nothing but bone dry sand. The field was completely void of any vegetation. There wasn’t even a single weed growing in it. The old man knelt down and picked up a handful of sand and slowly sifted the sand through his fingers. He got a far away look in his eyes as he began to speak. “This use to be good rich loamy soil with the smell of good clean earth. This use to be some of the most fertile land in the country, and we use to ship our produce all over the country.” The old man told the boy as he knelt there reminiscing.

The old man stood and led the boy behind the house. “This use to be our orchard” he said. He started walking around animatedly saying, “over here we grew apples, and every year your grandmother use to make the most amazing apple dumplings for my birthday.” He went on like that pointing out were they grew their plums, pears, pomegranates, and blackberries. Then he walked over to the far corner of the old orchard. When he turned around he had a huge smile on his his face as he said, “now here is where we grew our peaches. You haven’t lived till you have eaten peaches like we grew. They were bigger than your fist, and the joy you got when you ate them. First the fuzz would tickle your lips as you took a deep bite into their soft flesh. Then the flavor would overwhelm your taste buds as the juice flooded into your mouth, and then there was so much juice that the sweet rich liquid would pour down your chin.” The boy smiled up at his grandpa seeing the joy in his grandpa’s eyes as he shared these memories with him. He had never seen his grandfather so happy before.

The old man then led the boy into the dilapidated house. The paint had worn away, the roof was gone, the doors missing, and the glass had vanished from the windows long ago. He took the boy to the old living room of the house. Taking the boys hand in his he said, “once this house was filled with love and laughter. This house is just a skeleton of what it once was, but if you close your eyes and concentrate you can still feel the love, hear the whispers of the laughter that once filled these rooms, and you can smell the fragrance of the roses that used to drift through out the house.” The boy watched his grandfather as he stood there with his face lifted skyward eyes closed. He had a grin on his lips and a soft warm content look to him. After a few minutes he looked deep into his grandson’s eyes and said, “the happiest memories of my life took place right here with in these walls.”

“If you loved this place so much, and you have so many good memories of it why did you leave grandpa?” The boy asked him. The old man’s face suddenly looked sullen and a fog rolled across his eyes as he explained, “well first the heat came. Day after day of extreme heat that ruined our crops. Then the rain disappeared. We use to have monsoons that came in around the end of July every year, but one year they just stopped and never came again. With out the rain the water dried up which stopped the farming all together. When we couldn’t farm we had to move in to town to survive.” The boy saw tears come to his grandfather’s eyes as he said, “It saddens me the most to know that you will never get the opportunity to eat a fresh peach or to experience the farm life.” The boy watched as all the energy just seemed to drain out of his grandfather like someone just let all of the air out of a balloon. He looked old and tired as he turned to the boy and said, “let’s get in the truck. I just wanted to show you this place at least once.” It disturbed the boy to watch this transformation. At one point he saw his grandfather happier than he had ever been before, but then he saw him crash down to a low he had never seen before either. He didn’t know how to feel. The boy followed his grandfather to the truck. The old man looked back one last time then they climbed into the truck and drove away as the sun was setting deep crimson behind the ridge driving in complete silence.