It's a large, rustic looking house (on the outside), accessed via a long wooded gravel road. In the center of their circular driveway is a massive evergreen almost as tall as the house itself; my mother told me it was an old Christmas tree they planted when she was younger. A field stretches between my grandparents' house and the neighbors', and coming back here is what always feels most like a homecoming. In the evenings it used to fill with lightning bugs (fireflies to some of you) and you could catch them almost effortlessly; these days, for some reason, you'll be lucky if you spot more than one glow. Farther back on the property, past a wooded path and a peach tree, my grandpa has a chicken coop, and even further still a garden with everything from blueberries to pumpkins. I remember everything as bright and sunny and green, all the time. To a five year old, this place was paradise.
I'm not very close to my extended family up here in Connecticut, so it's a shame I live so far from my mother's side in Kentucky. But every once in a while we'll have the money to drive down and visit, and my grandparents' house remains about the same, even if the people in it change. My aunt and her two kids now occupy it as well, and because my mother had seven other siblings, aunts and uncles and cousins are constantly coming and going. I can only imagine what it feels like for my relatives who grew up in this house or at least close enough to visit often, when even I still associate it with home.
My mother in her wedding dress in front of the tree, much smaller then; A family reunion in front of the house in the 80's.
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