When my grandparents moved away from Lake Jackson back in 1999 and came up to the Dacula area, I was ecstatic. I was a bit conflicted at first, since they did live on a lake and that was pretty awesome, but having them right next door was one of the coolest ways to grow up.
They had a little two-bedroom house with a detached workshop for my grandfather, who had always been rather handy, to keep doing his projects in. There was a big field behind the house with some apple trees at the back of it and some other trees scattered through the front yard.
It was a quaint house where some of my fondest memories growing up came to be. It was also where some of my saddest memories happened.
My grandmother died almost four years ago, and my grandfather followed her 18 months later. Since then, that house has sat largely dormant. At least in my mind.
You see, the people who lived there, the people who gave that house life, were no longer there. I remember the first time I drove to my parents house after my grandfather died and coming over a hill to see that empty house just sitting there.
That moment was the first time I realized just how empty that house really was now. Seeing "their" house, but it no longer being theirs.
I had not stepped foot into that house for nearly two years when I had to go in there a few weeks ago to look for some things. I'm not ashamed to admit that it hit me pretty hard.
It was especially jarring because, well, the house that was metaphorically empty a while back was almost completely empty now. My mother has been busy emptying out rooms of furniture and decorations and just stuff for most of the last year, and so when I walked in, the house in almost no way resembled what it had when my grandparents still lived there.
I sat down on the carpet for a few minutes, I cried a little, and I just talked to the people who used to make that such a warm, inviting environment.
"Close the windows! You're letting a draft in!" (Photo by Chris Karidis on Unsplash
Literally. My grandfather would have the fireplace going in September because "It got chilly." Translated, it got below 85 degrees outside and that south Georgia blood wasn't gonna have it.
I look back now on when that house was under construction and when they first moved in. I look back now on how much fun I had sitting at the breakfast table with them and watching the birds eat out of the bird feeder while I ate my freshly-prepared, home-made Eggo waffles. Four of them, to be precise.
I look back on the time that my grandfather brought me home from the July 4th festivities at the Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center with tears streaming down my face because I was exhausted and kept trying to nap, but he kept jostling me saying, "No sleeping in the car!" Apparently, he thought I was joking. I wasn't.
I look back on all the times they fed our dog and got her fat. Like...really, really fat. She got diabetes. And then I look back on the time that my dad almost convinced my grandmother that she would have to stick the dog in the eye with its insulin shots.
I look back on all of these great moments and I wonder...how can a place so full of memories feel so empty?
When I first graduated college, most of my closest friends either still had a year of undergraduate to go, or they stuck around Athens while they finished grad school. So while I had a summer semester and another fall semester of undergrad classes to go in order to finish my second degree, I still had friends in Athens to hang out with.
After those classes were done and I moved back home, then on to Atlanta for a year with the BCM at Georgia State, I still had friends in Athens I could visit when I wanted to. This town had been like home to me for so long, and it was hard to give that up.
Then, all of a sudden, I was living back in Athens while most of my friends who were here had moved on elsewhere. Things had changed pretty drastically and quite quickly.
I can tell you this, Athens felt a lot less like home for a while there. I was still here, the University that I had once attended was still here, but that was about it. Oh, and my job was here, but what does that really count for?
Then, after my wife and I got married, we stayed in Athens and started our life together here. In the five years since that time, Athens has once again reclaimed that spot in my heart where it feels like home.
There is something special about this town, there's no doubt, but you have to admit that things change and sometimes that means a place isn't going to be what you thought it was forever.
More importantly, that should serve as a reminder that people matter much more than places or things. The two-bedroom brick house just outside of Dacula where my grandparents lived is just that. It's just a brick house with a lovely view and a nice workshop out back.
The people who lived there, the people who loved me and helped raise me, they were why that house had any meaning.
Do you know how many times I've ridden around in Fitzgerald, GA or Miami and my parents have showed me the houses they grew up in?
That's the same question we're all asking, chicken. That's the same question we're all asking. (Photo from http://www.wildchickenfestival.com)
Including the fact that Fitzgerald's wild chicken population probably rivals the human population of Miami, there's not much in common with those two towns. Yet, my parents can still talk about their respective homes with a grin on their faces. They carry the exact same expression when they talk about the houses they grew up in.
Obviously when we drove past those houses when I was a kid, the people living there probably had no idea who was right outside. They had no idea that someone who had just as deep a connection, or deeper, to that stack of bricks and mortar or wood and nails was driving by. The people inside the house, for our purposes, didn't matter. It was the memories that once lived there.
There's a saying that I heard once: Tragedy plus time equals comedy.
My family lives in Athens now. This is our home, so I see it every day. Had we not lived here, though, I imagine that my trips back to Athens now wouldn't feel so empty. I'd be far enough removed from college that I could think about those memories and realize just how special this place still is because the ghost of my college years will always linger here, along with that of countless others.
There will come day when I drive by my grandparents' old house and smile. Not because of who might be inside that day, not because of the always brilliant fall colors surrounding it that time of year, but because I'm far enough removed from the grief that the true beauty of time gone by stands out once more.
We have a fire pit in our backyard that my buddy Rylan helped me build, and I'm extremely proud of our handiwork, but I'm even more proud of the fact that we built that fire pit using the leftover bricks from my grandparents' house. That's one of the ways I've kept them with me.
There's a corner of our garage at home that has been full of junk piling up pretty much since the day we moved in. This past Monday, I cleaned that corner of the garage out and put down an old metal work bench with a bunch of parts boxes, a bench grinder, and a drill press. That work bench, until Monday, had sat in my grandfather's workshop. Along with the tools and the parts boxes and the other sundry items I took from there.
I will always keep my grandparents with me. I don't really need things like a work bench or a fire pit in order to do that. But I know that I will certainly cherish those things a little more because of the people they represent.