I have a thing for old places. Places where other people have lived, loved, cried… History soaks into the ground and it feels almost sacred.
Yesterday, the kids had a half day – which meant we had a sliver of time before soccer and football practice to go on an “adventure”. Josh rolls his eyes when I ask if they want to go on
Josh now rolls his eyes when I ask if they want to go on an adventure – but the word still makes me excited, and I can be cheesy if I want to.
When I suggested trekking out to Grafton to explore the ghost town, Josh was thrilled – he’s my fellow history lover. Anna was skeptical and Max just kept saying, “but I’m tired, can’t we watch a show?”.
I loaded the BFG to listen to and brought Anna’s kindle to play games as a special treat and we were on our way.
Josh and Anna were disappointed that the school and one of the houses were locked and tried their best to break in – no dice. We explored, swung on the swing and tried to imagine what it would have been like to live here. Anna thought it would have been great to go to school with only six other kids – Josh and Max not so much. Max was quite proud that he caught a lizard, but he hung onto it just a little too tightly. When I made him let it go, it didn’t move.
Buddy, I think he’s dead. We need to be so careful when we catch animals. We don’t want to hurt them.
I know Mom, but it wasn’t me, I think he must have gotten stung by a spider.
We’re working on accountability and being gentle. I was a little traumatized.
The best part was the graveyard. So many lives, so many stories that we’ll never know. Sacred ground. Josh discovered a boy with his same name that died at his same age. There were a lot of children there which led to a discussion on how lucky we are to live when and where we do. I would love to know the story of these three Piute Indians buried in the back. They died over one hundred years ago, and there were still flowers on their graves.
You don’t have to travel far to allow your kids to see a life different from their own, to shift perspective and to go home with gratitude – only ten minutes late for soccer practice and car sick from playing the kindle on the way back.