Happy Places

Grief often leads to deep reflection and processing. We reflect on times and places we spent with the person who has passed away. Some of the memories are good, some are hard. Some are forever altered as we look at them through the lens of loss. Regardless, these are often the happy places in our mind that we return to.time and again.

Over the Memorial Day weekend I had the chance to visit my family. We headed to Golconda, Illinois, a small little town on the banks of the Ohio River that is buried deep in the Shawnee National Forest of Southern Illinois. Compared to my hometown this place is small and yet vast at the same time. The town itself houses around 750 people, but the countryside that surrounds it is where the real beauty is. There are rolling hills, farm fields, rocky cliffs, creeks, gravel roads that go for miles, and you can see the stars that go on forever at night. The air is fresh and smells like the air smells when there isn't over a million people living in close proximity to you. I feel like I can breathe there.

As a kid I remember feeling excited as we passed the Homberg Road turn off and we drove past the county schools. High school on the right. Grade school on the left. Because that meant we were almost there. Almost to Grandma's house. As you drive into town and pass the Dari-Barr it's a quick drive up the hill to Granny's house. We all piled out of the car and walked right into her house because, naturally, the door was unlocked. Her front door played this little tune that I can still hear in my head. Grandma lived in a "shotgun house" where you could see through the entire house from the front door, the kitchen was in the back. We'd call out to her and head back to greet her in the kitchen. When she heard us coming she would be turned around smiling at you when you came through the kitchen doorway and say, "Oh my, well look there." She'd give a little laugh and the look on her face told you that no one in the world was more happy to see you than her. It was just kind of one of those things that you just knew and were 110% sure in. And if you weren't assured by that she was quick to follow that with a hug. A hug from Grandma was one of those hugs where you knew for those moments, you were good. It was less about the hug itself and more the overwhelming feeling of love that came with it. These moments are amongst my favorite growing up.

In more recent years, Grandma would come to visit out at the camper for dinner after we all blew in from boating all day. She would just sit there and smile as we told her about the day. We would tease her about coming out on the boat with us the next day. If you knew my Grandmother, you knew she was afraid of water. Even her bath water wasn't much more than a puddle. But she loved to listen to stories and tell us stories about how Grandpa liked to go water skiing. When I sat down beside her to talk she always laid her hand on my leg or my hand, or draped her arm around my shoulders. These were the perfect ends to perfect days.

These are the things that make up my happy place: the river, creeks, hills, trees, sounds and smells. But most importantly the people, more specifically one person: Grandma. Over the Memorial Day weekend I left the City (Chicago) to recharge and get away from the demands of graduate school. Naturally, my first instinct during times where I want to escape from all my responsibilities for a while is to go to my happy place: Golconda. For so long it has been a place that feels welcoming, comforting, and familiar. But all that has changed now. The landscape is the same and still makes me feel like I can breathe a little easier, but one vital piece of my happy place is gone: my Grandma.

Being in Golconda over the holiday weekend felt strange. Like I was in a new place that looked a little like a place I had been to, but didn't really recognize anymore. Something was just... different. I drove down the same roads, talked to the same people, walked the same paths. But it might as well have been a different country. When I walked through my Grandma's house it felt empty and hallow. Her house, a place I always felt welcomed and warm in, suddenly felt cold and vacant. I didn't recognize that place. Over the holiday weekend I realized that this place that had always been reliable in its sameness was now different. It was missing the most important part. It was and is missing her. My happy place is still a place I feel like I am freer than almost any other place, but my happy place isn't happy anymore. Now it's a place where I feel free at the same time I feel consumed by sadness. It's a place that once brought me nothing but pure joy, contentment, and peace. While I still experience joy, contentment, and peace there I don't experience them completely. Now joy is tinged with sadness, contentment with longing for more time with her, and peace with a stir of emotions. Suffice to say, my happy place is forever altered.