Going Back Home

Rt.52 Maitland Our house set up on this mountain from which I took the photo

I embraced the Welcome as I walked up the mountain to my childhood home.

It was very early spring and wildflowers and thorny bushes were emerging all around. Beautiful yellow flowers, small purple, wild Violets, and white blooms that I didn’t recognize. And the green leaves of the Mayapple were peeking through the sod.

 Ferns kept their place among the drying leaves and damp, rich earth which had been layered with another shedding of fall's completed cycle of turning ves into shades of brown and red. Raspberry vines were prevalent as they rose above the floor of the mountainside as if creating a canopy

 The beauty of those determined wildflowers and the freshness of the berry vines, added to the cardinals’ songs in a melody as if to celebrate our arrival and springtime. Other birds chirped loudly, but I did not recognize the sounds. And, while being absorbed by Spring’s awakening all around me, which included the symphony of the state bird of West Virginia, I heard coal trucks rumbling across the road beneath my hillside and then, the hauntingly beautiful sound of the train rolling across the ribbons of steel. My childhood memory came racing back in that moment as I saw the billowing, black sulfuric smoke rise high above me as I was headed home from school.   There must have been something in that tender and lovely flower that possessed an “I can do this”, attitude.

We kids were creating our own entertainment and having friends from around the community coming to hang out with us. With joy we watched for cars to arrive at the top of the hill, carrying cousins, aunts or uncles, the preacher for Sunday dinner...And all in my West Virginia mountain homeplace.

With determination, we can, like that small delicate, purple flower, be successful in our efforts no matter how seemingly difficult. Another lesson was scripted for me.