Remembering: One True Story

I love this picture. 

This photo was taken in the very early 1970s when I was a teenager and my brother, Gene, came home from Vietnam.  

The photo is of me and Gene standing in front of Mama's old house where I lived from when I was still 7 in early 1963 until I married.  This old house has not been there for many years now, but I remember it so well that I can smell it.  The clean, good wood, smell of home. 

I do not know who was in the porch swing of this photo.  Mama's house was always full of the neighborhood kids back then.  No telling which ones it was.  It looks like there is something in the old yellow chair behind, Gene, too.  No clue what that could have been.  

The bowl on the porch would have had water in it.  Back then we had the house cats, birds, and little dogs inside the house and we had our big dogs and our outside cats and other people's horses in the yard.  Dogs, cats, and children ran free all over town back then.  There were very few fences. 

If you look closely at the door of the house, you will see my Mama and my little pure-bred poodle, Nippy, both gone these many years, but this photo is stirring memories today.

Mama pitched a FIT when I bought Nippy for $100.00 in 1971 with my own money from my job.  She did NOT want the dog.  Then Mama promptly fell in love with the dog and would not allow me to take him with me when I married and moved.  Life is like that.  Sometimes what you think you do NOT want is what is best for you.

But I digress....

Gene came home that day.  I had not seen him for the four years he was in the Navy, then one day there he was at the door!  Surprise!!!  I did such a happy dance!  I wanted him to stay with us, but that was not to be.  It was still so good to see him.  Gene and I were a lot alike and always enjoyed each other's company.

I remember this day as a bright shining happy day.  Gene and I talked for hours about everything and nothing.  We ate good food and generally just caught up with each other.  I told him how I hated my glasses and how I cried myself to sleep every night because I was so skinny and couldn't gain weight.  He told me about Vietnam and the US Navy which made my problems seem small and unimportant by comparison. 

I will never forget this day.  I hope you have days in your life like this too.  Days so full of joy that they bear remembering.  Days you'll never forget.