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Don Locke: Lookin Thru Bifocals

I once read about a fellow named Gibron.  He was shipwrecked and made it to a nearby island.  The people there were helpful and friendly.  Still he longed for a ship to come and pick him up.  He longed for 12 years before anyone came to get him.

When he got ready to leave, he felt reluctant to go. Why the reluctance, he thought to himself?  What had come over him?  He couldn’t explain it.  The people had treated him well.  Why don’t I want to leave?

When our friends Margie and Weymouth Martin (Sr.) moved to their new house, Margie called Weymouth at the new place.  She had stayed behind at the old house seeing to things before closing up for good.  

“I was just sitting here on the stairs thinking about the good times we have had in this old house,” she said.  “I’m feeling kinda sad to leave.”

I think about my last day of military basic training.  As I walked out of the barracks door for the last time, I looked back at my cot where I had sweated through summer nights — dragged out at the crack of dawn, and marched-marched, yelled at a lot, and chewed out.

But I was going back to my wife whom I had missed, back where the world made sense. 

And yet, this place I had hated for a while, seemed to say,  “You leaving so soon?  I’m just getting to know you.”  That’s crazy, I thought.

Was I hating to leave? Or did the place become a part of me to the point it wanted to go with me?  That’s crazy too.

I’m no psychologist, but we as humans become attached; we settle in.  Yet when we become detached we feel we leave a part of ourselves behind; we also take a part of ourselves with us.  Maybe the biggest part.

When we sold our place in the country, where we had lived 44 years, and moved to town, we brought with us memories of the old house; kids, dogs, cats, horses, bicycles, and a wonderful vegetable garden.  That’s all still a part of us.  

Our new place in town is a part of us now.  We have acquired one new cat, Lilly Bell. That’s all the animals we have.

Kindest regards… 

 
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