Some Things You Never Miss Until They’re Gone
An evergreen tree up the hill in the neighborhood where I grew up was decorated with hundreds of lights every year for Christmas. For decades it has been a landmark in town during the holidays, visible from a distance. It can be found on a map-painting of the city which hung in City Hall.
Last week, an unusually powerful windstorm swept through the western United States, causing millions of dollars of damage. My hometown and neighboring towns are susceptible to winds funneling through the eastern mountain canyons, and were no exception this time. The tall tree, which reached 55 feet (it’s easier to measure now), was one of the hundreds of trees throughout the area felled by hurricane-strength forces.
My mom texted me the morning after the wind had come in and reported that the famous tree had been blown down. I was surprised to realize how much I would miss it! It had just been taken for granted that the tree would be lit for the Christmas season, a bright, festive annual treat for the neighborhood.
How many things, places, events are a part of your family traditions, or a part of your family’s collective memories, that are taken for granted? The car the kids drove when they turned 16, the elementary school all the kids attended, the treehouse in the woods, the city park where you walk the dog. Eventually, the car will be junked, the school will be torn down, the woods will become a subdivision, and the park will be remodeled. We don’t usally think to take pictures or videos of things and places such as these, but how many stories and experiences do they bring back to mind! Having a picture, a reminder of some kind, is like having a key to your memories. Better to have a backup on hand when the original disappears so you can more easily access those memories and stories in order to record them for posterity.
It’s too late for anyone to take their own picture of the old tree in all its glory, but it’s a good reminder not to take for granted those things which bring back good memories.
I was asked to do some research on creameries here in Iowa. Initially my thinking was this is going to be a piece of cake, I grew up on a dairy farm and we hauled cream to a creamery at least twice a week. Sure, that creamery closed, but there should be plenty left. What came of this changed my view of what was important, forever. Iowa, with a record of over 1,100 creameries, a creamery in 97 out of 99 counties and some with thirty and forty creameries, had reduced itself to less than five creameries, none of them scaled to the size I expected to talk about. Once my allusions had been cleared, I started to see things differently. Those things that seemed unimportant, became a focus for me. When groups form to save barns, I’m out photographing all the other buildings that will be lost only because throwing a match at them won’t make as big a fire as the barn will and often are gone long before the majestic barn comes down. Often it is in the small things that life as we know it, changes forever. Hind sight is twenty twenty, but by the time you clearly understand it, the object of your affection has left, never to be recorded or memorialized. So do it now, don’t put it off.