Ahhh…home again after two days of interviews and speaking engagements, two nights in strange beds, and two drives through the countryside where farmers were harvesting at full tilt. Though my eyelids are drooping and my body can’t wait to rest on our mattress’s familiar bumps and lumps, my heart is grateful for the people who made this quick trip a treasure of joy.
First, my cousin and his wife opened their home to me Sunday evening. Catching up on life with the adults was grand, but catching up on kid stuff with their children was a gold mine of information. I am now fluent in Thomas the Tank lingo, northwest Iowa youth tackle football league play-offs, downloading MP3 files, or the alphabet song – thanks to their three boys (ages 12, 10 & 5) and their 3-year-old daughter.
Monday yielded its own delights. The morning’s walking trail wound past a farmer combining corn and the local grain elevator with its growing pile of Iowa corn. Later in the day, the professionals and parents in the special needs community who agreed to be interviewed for my book shared nugget after nugget of wisdom. Then my daughter, her husband and I went out to dinner to celebrate his new job.
Which brings us to this morning when I spoke at a service club in my hometown, sharing childhood stories and memories of the people who helped our family after Dad was diagnosed with MS. Afterwards a friend of my parents spoke to me. “Every time I visited your dad,” he said, “I left with more than I had given. It was impossible to visit him and not leave smiling, feeling good.” We looked at each other, our eyes bright with tears.
Home again, reliving the memory, I wonder if this dear man knows what his words mean to me. They the assurance that my father’s life mattered, that he is remembered, that he gave more than he was given. His words are my golden treasure.
And I am grateful.
