Light streamed in from the car window, my eyes adjusting to reveal a canopy of green above the moving vehicle. The foretelling noise of crunching gravel paired with the static of radio silence signaled that we were in the middle of nowhere, and that meant we were almost to our destination.

I always knew when we had finally reached my great-grandmother’s house when I saw the weathered statue of the Virgin Mary standing guard over the gate, watching over the entrance to the farm. This farm was, and still is a symbol of older, perhaps simpler times. Anyone could reach the same conclusion if they only noticed the peeling wallpaper, calendars from the 1980’s, and buildings that haven’t been walked in for years. It was a sanctuary for the family, a place where people met and gathered and shared in the collective solitude the location brought. It became that for me too, an undisturbed piece of nature, but I realized its meaning to late.
A few times, the most recent being eight years ago, my family and I made the drive to the farm on Christmas Eve. It was something of a tradition, one that in essence died long ago, though the memories still bring some comfort. Everyone was there: aunts, uncles, and the peculiar third cousins who spent the whole evening lurking by the wall remarking on how much I had grown since they last saw me, which I doubt was in this century.
Three dozen people packed in the kitchen, half that in the family room, and even more coming and going, but always sending their regards, even though it was an empty gesture. And, per usual, in the middle of this giant mess sat the only woman who could bring all these people together, my great grandmother. She was the epitome of a stereotypical old woman, with a shawl she hand knitted draped over her shoulders, and glasses large enough to cover my face at the time. These gatherings is where her personality shown through the dismal gray the sky had caused our hearts to feel. Everyone always made a point to go in and talk to her for at least a few minutes before leaving, and she treated them all the same, an unyielding kindness most of them didn’t deserve to know.
I often mused it was this same kindness that kept her fourteen children from not murdering each other while they disputed everything from land, money, and charges of nepotism regarding the family business, which I hope you would have guessed by now is farming. These petty arguments only grew after she passed away.

But that kindness, that was something she carried with her all the way to the end. When I was seven years old I brought a backpack of plastic animals with me when we visited her to cure out of the boredom the house had when I was young. She sat there and paid apt attention while I droned on for hours describing each of those tiny figurines. Even my mother came in and suggested that I should leave her alone for a little bit, but she only raised her hand and urged me to continue on. She watched as I categorized them by size and methodically counted all two hundred and seventy five of them. She even helped me find a camera so I could take a picture for her and me to keep.

I’d have to say that is the strongest memory from my childhood that I have of her. I was nine when she died. It wasn’t in a hospital, like we all thought it was going to be (at this point in her life those emergency trips to the ER where becoming too frequent for comfort). My mother and I had just come home from my soccer practice when the phone rang. I turned on the TV and began to take off my cleats when my mother re-entered the room, a solemn look plastered on her face. She called my sister in and informed us of the news.

“It was in her sleep,” mother said, “and don’t worry, she didn’t experience any pain.” These words were foreign to me, and, to be honest at that time, meaningless too.

I wasn’t upset during her funeral. I spent the service chasing caterpillars amongst the autumn leaves. Years later, the sense of emptiness finally reached me. We were visiting her house, as my uncle Bill still lived there, and it was different.  A sense of emptiness filled the space that once held such warmth and light. Most of her belongings were gone, either thrown out or sold to strangers who have no idea of their history of meaning in my memories. Her children fought more now, money blinding them and that want for it filling them where her love used to be. Everything has to end, and nowhere is that more apparent than that house.