Tennessee

I got the news today. The part that was the bigger issue, wasn’t what made me tear up, it was the losing you, that made me lose it. I’ve spent many summers with you, almost taking you for granted. I planned to visit you next year, often, and when times were hard or stressful. Writing this, and thinking about you being gone, there is this empty space in my heart, unwelcome feelings, thoughts and emotions. Something is missing inside me, and its because you’re going to be out of my life too soon. I can’t imagine it fathom it. I built my life around you, as the song Landslide expressed. I’ll be listening to that on repeat for a while. It feels like I’m losing such a huge part of me, of who I am, of my world. I’ve made so many memories with you. Captured so many pictures with you as the focus, and theme. You have sheltered my grandparents for many, many years, and I thank you for that. You have been strong and courageous during very scary and tough storms. You were there when we celebrated their 50^th anniversary, Hawaiian themed. You were there when Tanner caught an octopus in the pond and told all of us about it. You were there when we tried our best to climb the magnificent Magnolia tree, but I always failed. You were there when grandmamma, granddaddy and I got the call that Skyler and Richard were engaged. You were with us over many Thanksgiving and Christmas’s. You were there for family reunions and some of Davis’s first steps. I finished a book on your couch and started stories in your back yard. You were there when we cried, when we laughed, when we fought, when we hugged, when we danced, when we sang, when we lost and when we loved. Mexican train was always a tradition along with catching lightning bugs and sitting around the TV to watch a John Wayne with you. We will all miss you dearly, and I may or may not miss you the most, but I may miss you with the strongest of emotions. You were a fortress, a safe house, a place I could go when all else failed. You were my heaven on earth. If only I had known that the last time I was with you, would be the last time I’d ever be with you, but I guess that’s how it always is, with everything special in our lives. Some people say you don’t know what you have until it’s gone, but I sure knew, and I treasured you. I wont be able to grasp that you aren’t going to be in my future, and I wont be able to visit you on the weekends to get away from Jackson, to get away from life. I wont be able to introduce my best friend to you. But you, what I lost, isn’t a you at all. It’s a place, a structure, something that will rot away. You are a house, and a home to many, but especially me. And maybe this feeling of loss is so strong because it feels like ill lose those memories along with you. Ill lose my grandparents and Tennessee along with you. I lived like I would never lose you and if I lose you, I lose everything that made my summers, my visits, my heaven, so special. Because it wasn’t the house at all, it was never the house. It was the memories, the moments, and those things that built me. It was my grandparents, my cousins, late nights watching movies or laughing too loudly. Mornings filled with the smell of coffee, hugs and something always cooking. It was the star filled skies, and the rainbow colored sunsets. I captured them all, along with some of my favorite people and ill never be able to make more memories like those, ill make new ones, but they’ll never compare, not without you. So thank you, for making my life that much better. To most you may just be some old house, but your smell, your walls, your memory filled rooms and hallways, those, those are the things that built you, that built me.

With all my love, and memories, goodbye.