Sometimes what you think you see is really something else. I thought I saw a low flying duck coming in for a lake landing. Funny thing was, it would have had enormously long wings and an extended beak. But that’s what I thought I saw, and I’m sticking to my story.
My first clue that I was incorrect was that it didn’t take flight upon closer scrutiny. It turned out that it was a dried up tree limb poking out of the green-leaved branches of a tree along the lake’s bank.
Seeing that shade of washed-out brown bark with some patches of greenish lichen on its “head” reminded me of having seen something similar before, up close and personal.
It was 1950-something and our family was returning home to Tennessee from a weekend trip visiting relatives in Alabama. We stopped to enjoy our picnic lunch that had been packed for us by aunts who loved to do that sort of thing. Dad knew the backroads well, so he veered off the main highway and stopped where the gravel brought us right up to a small lake.
After devouring the ham sandwich on white bread, gulping lemonade from Mason jars we always had on road trips and slurping down tomatoes fresh-picked from Gramma Barker’s garden that were sweet enough for dessert, I joined my brother David for a stroll on the shore.
That’s when we spied IT and started dragging it back to our parents. It took two of us to get it there, but we knew it would be well received.
You see, my mother collected driftwood. She had for years and liked to use smaller pieces within the flower arranging that she did for fun and for competition. The abundantly flowering garden in our backyard produced gorgeous specimen blooms year after year. She was a multiple medal and ribbon winner, my Mom!
Lately she and Dad had started to decorate the edge of our patio and do string art with some medium sized varieties, but we were bringing her the largest piece of driftwood I had ever seen. We just knew she would love it!
And she did, but then reality set in. How would we get the thing home? We didn’t have a roof carrier or a trailer hitch behind to put it on. Our excited kid brains hadn’t thought this through, but a solution was found thanks to Dad’s ingenuity.
The driftwood became a passenger inside the car. After having me take my seat behind Mom, my brother and Dad pushed it into the car until one of its long arms went in front of me and out my rolled down window. The base of the driftwood fit on the seat beside me. Then my brother squiggled under the other long arm of wood and lifted it up to rest on the window sill on his side of the car.
Success!
There wasn’t room for taking more than shallow breaths, and getting out and back in from bathroom breaks was a whole other adventure. We finally just fell asleep with driftwood for our pillows and made it home with memories to share for generations.
(That piece of driftwood moved with Mom and Dad to their retirement cabin in North Carolina as well as the assisted living house they called home for many more years.)
Dad showed us by example on that trip that something he said a lot was actually true. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way!” I’m still being encouraged by that road trip and Dad’s philosophy today: to see the possibilities within each challenge life brings and creatively take action.
All thanks to a piece of drifting wood.
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I’m excited to support you as your childhood memories bubble up with insights you didn’t notice back then. Those insights may help catapult your empty nesting family through any challenges ahead! Let’s start energizing your approach to reminiscing today, so you can capture and joyfully share MORE of YOUR story with your loved ones.
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