The drive home

I grew up on a farm in New England.  The mountain-ringed sky was endlessly filled with clouds, the afternoon sun set the sky ablaze, the tall grasses in the fields swayed in the afternoon breeze and the cool white-columned house sat majestically at the end of the long English poplar-shaded driveway.

It was a wonderful but lonely place to grow up.  There wasn’t really anybody like me around and my parents were quite conservative.

I would come home from school and do my chores and laze around in the pool with my little sister.  We’d sing Dannii songs and act like we were famous, so she had me figured out at a young age.  Probably why she shed a tear at my wedding years later.

I took the long drive home this weekend to see my parents with the mini men.  I stopped on the dirt road some distance from home and let the boys sit on my knee and -˜drive’ with me.  They got instantly distracted by grasshoppers, birds and cows so the car was hard to steer with six hands on it.

We gently entered the circular driveway and Ma came running out, arms open wide to collect her precious grandsons and smother them in kisses.  A familiar melody came from the lounge room where Mum was playing her records (Barry Manilow -” no wonder I’m gay).

Inside Poppy was pretending to be asleep with his trademark hat on.  Poppy acted like a woken grizzly bear and chased us around for cuddles and we all settled down on the veranda with beers and lemonade and a splash in the mini pool for the boys to cool down.

We took a family trip into town to watch the country music festivities and I laughed as my eldest started dancing to the buskers with Ma in tow.  I had my first trip ever to a public pool with my parents.  We took the boys for a swim and it was surreal seeing the boys in the pool where I had my school swimming carnivals.

I caught up with a friend I hadn’t seen in years. We’d been each other’s best man at our weddings and I’ve known him since I was 12.  We seem to have drifted apart and since my marriage break-up and the unspoken reason, he seems to have sailed further away.

Ma and Poppy decided to meet me on the southern end of town to say goodbye and buy the boys lunch at Chippies House.

When I look back on the weekend and think about carrying my boys around the town I grew up in, I feel I have grown up so much.  Yet, I’m still my parents’ son.  They wouldn’t even let me pay for petrol on the way home.

The boys slept deeply while we cruised through the hills and clouds and I sat there thankful for my wonderful life and looked back at the two heads tilted together breathing heavily, peacefully and loved.