Gallery

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It seemed that time stood still as Padraic and I stepped out of the car in front of the iron gate and stood looking at the old house. It had been forty-five years since I had last seen this house, the same length of time since I had seen cousin Padraic himself.  It was the family reunion that had brought us together at long last in Leitrim County, Ireland.  

They changed the roof, I said.  The new owners had replaced the old thatched roof with some kind of corrugated sheet metal.  Now the old house had the look of abandonment.  

Can we go up and take a look?  

I don’t see why not, said Padraic. Doesn’t seem to be anyone around.  Ah sure, noone would mind anyway.  

And so the two of us strode up the lane, our shoes squishing in the soggy grass – dress shoes they were as we had just come from Uncle John’s funeral.   A flood of memories cast its spell. This was the childhood home of Padraic’s mom and mine.  A family of ten lived in that house – three rooms and a fireplace and a few kerosene lamps. This is the farm my mom had taken my two sisters and me to visit when I was four years old so that she could see her father one last time.  After leaving dad at the dock in New York, we had taken a ship, then a train, then a car to get here.  We looked around in bewilderment when we finally arrived.  To me, a kid accustomed to playing on the sidewalks of the Bronx, the farm looked to be the loneliest place on earth.  Almost a full year we had lived in that house, while dad stayed home to keep his night job at the Tip Top Bakery.  

And so some of my earliest memories are rooted in this farm: warming ourselves by the fireplace, the cow birthing a calf, my grandfather killing a chicken, mom and us kids cleaning out the chicken for our Christmas feast, waiting for the postman to deliver a letter from dad, wandering alone in the fields.  These were the gifts for my formative years. 

Padriac walked ahead of me up the lane.  I snapped a picture.  Right there near the tree was the spot the donkey collapsed, and my 80-year-old grandfather lifted it back up to its feet.  He was a crotchety old guy.  I once saw him pouring salt into a bloody wound on his hand after a slip of the axe. 

Let’s stop a minute, said Padraic.  Let’s stop and shake hands right here and remember that we are on sacred ground, he said solemnly.  “Ah, you’re killing me, Padraic”, I said, though I shared his sense of wonder and returned his Irish handshake with a California hug.  We were soul brothers now. 

That’s Padraic walking up the lane, based on the reference photo I took, though relatives say he was and is younger and better looking than I depicted.  I agree.  

My paintbrush restored the old thatched roof.