Bill Bryson once said, “Coming back to your native
land after an absence of many years is a surprisingly unsettling business, a
little like waking up from a long coma.” As I write this Insight, I’m sitting
at the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library in Kansas. I am in my home
state to visit family and a few close friends. I enjoy returning home and
seeing “old” places again for the first time.
But, much like Bryson, I am
always a bit startled when I see how much things have changed over the years. When
I left home 20 years ago for my “short adventure” to the eastern seaboard, I
somehow believed the life I left behind would freeze in time and would always
greet me, just as it was when I left, remaining in its usual way upon my return.
I have discovered over the years however, the world does not revolve around me.
The landscape and people continue to transform, refusing to accommodate my perception
of time. This often happens when I visit someone I haven’t seen for a long
while. On this return visit, I got to meet up with a young friend of mine. She
is the 33-year-old daughter of one of my best friends in Kansas and is now a
mother to two young daughters.
Bri and I, along with her mother and brother, have
gone on a couple of road trips in the past. One such adventure included a trip
through the Southwest and along the West Coast, camping along the way. We have
often reminisced about the silly mishaps on this excursion, but there was no
mention of such during this visit. Instead, we spent some time talking about
what life was like now that her mother passed away from cancer 1 ½ years ago.
It was the first time we met up after her mother’s passing and life
celebration. As Bri spoke, I was again amazed at how time travels and changes
so rapidly. “Where did that nine-year old go?” I asked myself, thinking back to
the moment I first met Bri and her mother.
But as I continued to listen to her, she amazed me
with her strength and sense of serenity despite all things. There was a deep
and calm beauty about Bri that she inherited from her mother and I began to
sense a familiarity. For just a moment in time, life didn’t change. My native
land and all who were in it when I left, remained the same. Her mother was
before me, unchanged. As soon as the feeling arrived, it left just as quickly.
As for my own family, the grandchildren now have
children of their own. “The only thing that has changed about us is that we are
old, fat and gray,” my four brothers will joke. There is a bit of truth to
their humor, and humor is one constant gift they give to me.
I thank my lucky stars that we can capture a few flashes
of familiarity in an ever-changing world. And if we let it, it can soothe those
drastic moments of change that startle us.
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