Great Hair Day and A Memory

First and foremost I am having a wonderful hair day, I feel like Charlotte from Sex and The City. Now on to the bulk of this blog. I have such wonderful memories from my Grandma and Pa's house in Chesterton when I was growing up and they are constantly popping into my head, spurred by some unknown but welcome trigger. Today when my friends and I were driving home from Ft Wayne one of my favorites popped into my head. My Pa built their house and he was constantly adding on back porches before I was born and because of this there was a back porch, a way back porch, and a way way back parch. I'm not kidding in the slightest, that's actually how we referred to them. I loved the way way back porch. It was all screened in, had a metal roof, and it protruded from the house so it was surrounded by the yard on three sides. There was a big hanging swing for 3 or 4 people. And then there was a little tiny one made for us grandkids (small enough so that by the time they passed away when I was 13 or 14 my butt couldn't fit in it and if you had seen my little ballerina butt back then, well it wasn't very big at all). I used to love swinging in the little one, we all did and my sister and I would always argue over it. There was also a metal canoe hanging on one wall and a lot of random things hanging on the others from other countries from when my Pa was in the Pacific during WWII. Many of my memories from the house include both my sister and I but this one is uniquely mine. I remember that every time it rained I would go and sit on one of the swings and listen to it pound on the metal roof. I'd just sit there day dreaming and listening to the rhythm and watching it batter my Pa's tomatoes in the garden directly in front of me and my Grandma's Lilies in the garden to my left. Sometimes Pa would come out and sit with me, sometimes we'd talk but not always. He and I always had a special connection and we didn't need to talk. When we did though I'd tell him my childish fantasies about how the big tree with the shimmering leaves in the distance was magic and how I really wanted to walk to it but I though it was too far. He would just listen. Sometimes when he wasn't there I'd make up songs, usually about that tree and just sing to my hearts content. There was almost always the smell of roast beef coming through the back porch, the way back porch, all the way to me in the way way back porch, my Grandma always made it because she knew how much I loved it. It was rare to walk into that house and not smell food, and it almost killed me when we came in after she had gone to a nursing home and that smell was gone. I don't know how to explain how terrifying that was, to know that my years and memories in that house were going to end. But I digress. The smell of roast beef was mingled with the smell of the rain and a clean dirt smell. The air was usually cool but muggy and I would sit there for as long as my mom would let me or until someone came to get me to eat dinner or play Clue. I know this memory is a little random, but whenever they come to me I have this need to write them down because my worst fear is that I'll forget them. My Grandma and Pa were everything to me and I would give anything to just hug one of them again. My memories of them and their house are wonderful but they're also bittersweet and it just kills me to think that there are people in my life that I love that will never get to meet the people that in all seriousness made me who I am. I miss them more than I ever thought it was possible to miss anyone. Anyway, I treasure this memory of the way way back porch and the rain and I'm sorry if sharing it with you brought your moods down at all, it's a happy memory really, the happy memory of a blessed child.