I went to a place this weekend that I haven’t been to in a very long time.
Physically, I’ve been back there several times since my parents have been gone. But mentally, I haven’t allowed myself to truly be there since we drove out of town after my dad’s funeral, which in and of itself was a blur. I remember thinking that even though State College wasn’t going anywhere, I was leaving it forever...at least in the form that I had always known it to be.
Now that I’m living back in Pittsburgh, I’m 2 and a half hours away from the people I went to school with, had porch parties with, and made memories with for almost 15 years of my life. I’ve always called Pittsburgh home, but I can’t deny that I grew up in State College. That little college town that I couldn’t wait to get away from will always be the place with all the people who raised me. That house on Devonshire that we moved into when I was going into third grade may have been any old house, but its location on that street provided me with lasting friendships and memories. It was surrounded by adults who were involved in our lives for the simple fact that we lived on the same street and occasionally sat out on the sidewalk with their kids until 1am. It wasn’t in good condition by the end, and at that point it seemed like just a storage place for my parents’ belongings once they were both gone. The last time I walked out that front door, I looked at it as a place that no longer meant anything because the nuclear family that once resided there—the one I barely even recognized as my own at this point—had been cut in half. And so I tucked it safely in the back of my mind, and I watched from afar as my brother packed and sold everything inside of it, and then the house itself. I never went back inside, and I never thought twice about that.
When I found out one of my best friends was going to be visiting there from Savannah this weekend, I knew I wasn’t going to miss seeing her and spending time with her. I knew it was going to be hard, but the reward of time with friends was going to be worth the difficulty of taking the steps to get there.
I put the address in my GPS and was relieved that it was taking me a different route than we always followed with my dad. I thought maybe it would make it easier, and perhaps I could just avoid all routes that took me down any potentially sad paths altogether.
About 30 minutes into the trip, I passed Grove City, and it was then that I completely lost it. I remembered my dad and Aunt Mardie taking us shopping there for back to school clothes. Phil would always find great bargains for Neal, while I generally came with a higher price tag to keep me completely relevant and fashion forward (if you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, please refer to the picture of me in my cutoff flannel shirt, stonewashed jeans with holes in the knees, and basketball shoes for all the zero times I played basketball.) When I stopped daydreaming (and crying), I pulled my attention back to whatever hit 90s song was playing on the radio. Just kidding, it was actually a church service I didn’t even realize I was listening to for a half hour. I flipped through the stations to find something more upbeat, and tried to think about something else. Shortly thereafter, I looked up at the beautiful blue sky (the same one my mom would look at and say “the sky is the same color as your eyes”) and saw a cloud that looked so much to me like a duck running with its wings back to catch up with its other duck friends (probably with really cool names, too.)
I smiled when I thought about how much my mom loved her ducks. Brownie, Baby, Stretch and Hercules (like I said, cool names.) She took empty nest syndrome to whole new level, and it was almost a requirement for me to acknowledge each of my four feathered siblings (over the phone, by the way) before she’d even think about continuing any conversation we may have been having. She used Facebook to keep everyone updated on their active lives which entailed eating gross things, swimming and adventuring all over the place, and defecating everywhere (not unlike her human son, actually.) She also completely ruined everyone’s day when she shared with all of her Facebook friends that three of them had been claimed by a vicious weasel, leaving poor Stretch as the sole survivor. Unfortunately, he succumbed to his injuries about a week later. It’s okay if you’re laughing, because I am, too. RIP, duckz. (She also thought it was incredibly creative to add a “Z” to the end of the noun to pluralize it, since her married name also started with a Z...hence how her nickname “Jazazzle” was born.) That twinge in my heart, thinking about how quirky and adorable she was about those ducks, eventually subsided. But it was followed by an exit sign for Clarion and Cook’s Forest, where my parents took us several times as kids. My memory of Cook’s Forest is fuzzy, but I do specifically recall a slide on which you had to go down kneeling on a mat, and to this day I remember how faded their colors were and just hope they were using a solid disinfectant on those and taking them out of circulation once they really started disintegrating. I’d also be lying if I said I’m not at all curious about their green tagging process.
I passed a crushed up guard rail and thought about the time I side swiped one of them while driving to Raystown, with my cousin Kim and my brother as my passengers. I thought about how forgiving my mom was about that, considering it was her Sebring convertible I was driving. Then I thought about how forgiving she and my dad were when I side swiped his Ford Windstar while backing her big conversion van out of his driveway, causing minor damage to both vehicles. I like to think that was before my friends and I decorated her van with car paint for junior prom and then decided it’d be a fine idea to clean that paint off with dish washing sponges. (Spoiler Alert! We were wrong.) But despite my horrible driving skills and general decision making, she never seemed to get mad. She just liked to see me enjoying life with my friends, while keeping her close as I was growing up. She was always quick to remind me that they were just possessions, and as long as I was safe and unharmed, everything was going to be fine.
The next exit sign that sparked a reaction was the one for Bellefonte. The little town I played soccer for through high school, my mom never once missed a game. I remember one in particular (and I’m sure my coach does too) in which she stormed out onto the field because a storm was rolling in and we were still playing. She summoned my friend Katy and me to grab our things so we could leave, and I remember golf ball sized hail falling out of the sky a few minutes after we got into the car. But it was a tied game, and we just wanted the W. (Did we have any Ws at all?)
When I finally got into State College, I had finally accepted the simple fact that I had been fighting for days leading up to Saturday...and that was that this was not easy, and it wasn’t going to be no matter when I finally faced it head on. I remembered that being in Pittsburgh was difficult too at first, but now it’s such a source of comfort that makes me feel closer to my parents every day. Just accepting that made it so much easier to drive through town and really look at and see all those landmarks and sights that hold so many memories of the two of them. Being with my friends was also the jackpot, because they reminded me of stories I had forgotten about. And just as I suspected, my time with them made it completely worth the discomfort and the emotions that came with this (very short) trip.
Memories are one of the only things I have left of my parents, and it’s ironic that I seem to fight so hard against things that end up uncovering a goldmine to so many more of them.
But there’s still one thing I wasn’t ready to do this time, and that’s okay, because I’ll save it for next time when I plan on showing up at my former neighbors’ house for a long overdue porch party...and that is drive down that old street and look at the house; the one I’ve never had to look at as anything but my own.
Grief is a never ending process. It ebbs and flows and it’s something that must be faced every single day; even when it’s uncomfortable, even when it’s inconvenient, and even when it’s hard. I’m thankful for the reminder of the importance of moving forward and remembering there will always be bumps (or potholes...so. many. potholes) along the way, but I’m also thankful for the opportunity to look back at the road behind me and recognize how far I’ve come.
(***I’m sorry to all those in State College that I didn’t see this trip....but I’ll be back soon enough.***)
