Stone wall.

photo by StripeyCat

Back around Thanksgiving, I was wandering through blogs, happily soaking up all those photos of leaves that everyone shares. And then I got to that stone wall. I had forgotten how much I love an old stone wall. I didn't even realize how much I missed them until right then. We don't have them down here, at least not like they do back in Connecticut. All those imperfect old walls, some haphazardly slipping apart in places as time & the elements wear away at them. Stone walls with so much character and so rich with history.

I've let that photo sit in my mind, coming back to look at it again & again, as the thoughts & emotions it stirred within me sorted themselves out. Almost in the same instant I saw that photo, I had asked its owner for permission to use it here, knowing a blog post was trying to surface.

My Gramp used to build stone walls when he worked for a nursery as a young man. As we would drive down various roads in our town, he would point out to me the ones he helped build, sometimes telling me a bit of a story, but mostly just pointing it out, being a man of few words. My eyes would gaze at each wall. I would try to picture my Gramp as this young man, the one who built the walls. And even as I grew old enough to drive these same roads myself, I would catch a glimpse of the walls & remember who constructed it, remember the days of my childhood, perched in the seat of the brick red-orange 1976 Dodge Ram beside a mountain of a man.

I don't know how many of these walls are still there, having outlived the progression of time, environment, the ever-changing landscape, and my Gramp. But I think about them now. I wonder. I can still picture them because he took the time to point them out to me.

I think of that strong young man, younger even than I am now, and the strong grandfather I knew. And there is a bittersweet tug at my heart when I remember my Gramp as his own memories failed him. I don't stay there long, I don't dwell on those last years, because that's not who he really was. Oh yes, I loved him just the same, but he was so much more than his body betrayed him to be in those final days. As the years pass, I realize that his mind crippled by the vicious Alzheimer's has given me a gift of appreciation. Because I can remember. I can recall him as he was for most of my life: strong and quiet, larger than life but with a warm kindness. I can bring to mind the days we spent together, the things he showed me, the stories he felt worthy of sharing, the qualities he instilled in me. I can wander along those stone walls in my memory as they amble away in their crooked imperfect beauty, dipping out of sight between hills or behind trees or around a bend...only to appear again, just a bit further up the road.

They aren't unlike memories really, these stone walls. They might be messy & out of balance in areas. They might disappear from view & then resurface again a little later. They may not be perfectly straight and vines may climb the rocks, slightly altering the wall's appearance. They might look as though they cannot stand the test of time...and in some places they may not. But their structure is solid and it can withstand the harshness of relentless years. In the end, the stone wall stands for a long long time before it once again becomes the loose stones from which it was formed, unless someone chooses to take it down.

I cherish these memories, because now I can remember for us both.