Birthday with Mom (and Dad) (and the farm)

[Part 2 of 4 - continued from the Tumblr post of Part one]

My daughter and I woke up on Saturday at the Hays motel on my birthday. In Kansas. Hours west of Kansas City. Back to my roots.

For the first time in over three decades, I was celebrating my birthday with my Mom in the same physical location. A major drawback in living so far away from your parents - the lack of availability or finances to make a round trip to visit on special days.

After buying food at the local Walmart, we headed north to Stockton on US 181. 181 was a frequent path for me when I was younger, but by the time I was in high school and driving on my own, it had become almost not a road traveled at all for me -- especially this part from Hays to Stockton.  Hastings, Nebraska in high school had become my road destination to find a McDonald's and other entertainment.

We greeted Mom/Grandma with joyous celebration upon arrival in Stockton!

And we stocked her refrigerator with a lot of food! It was so good to hear Happy Birthday in person from my Mom. When you get old, you appreciate that a lot more. For you people who can routinely see your parents, don't discredit that moment each year; it is precious.

While Mom was making pizza and cake, we traveled out of Stockton to visit the cemetery to see Dad. I know Dad was so happy for me and my daughter to be here on my birthday. I said with an emotional voice at his grave, "Dad, I made it back here to visit you and to see Mom on my birthday."

I was so pleased that I had made it back to the cemetery just a little over two years after Dad's funeral. I visited other family graves and remembered them as well. My aunt and uncles. My grandfather. And other family members I never had a chance to meet -- my grandmother, an uncle, and great-grandmother and great-grandfather. Always good to remember those who lived before you and who left a part of their DNA for your existence.

I stood in the cemetery and it's loneliness as the wind whistled through the grass. I looked out beyond my family graves and looked at all of the other graves here. People who moved here, lived in this part of the world, and had moved on from this planet.

We left the cemetery to drive over some more rough roads to see the old family farm. The farm where all of those Hunters who were buried at this cemetery lived. Kind of amazing over 100 years of history tied to the farm and to the cemetery.

My arrival at the farm was reality. The last time I visited here at Dad's funeral, even though the farm had passed through other owner hands by that time, it still looked somewhat familiar then.
Now, it did not.

The house that a Hunter built from limestone was gone. Vanished. Demolished. No more.

It was a shock to see.

The farm house as it was in the 60s.

Now just the trees and empty space.

We traveled back to the pavement the quickest we could. The rough roads were too much for the car. And for me.

Back in Stockton, we arrive just in time for pizza birthday lunch with Mom! We stayed with Mom for another day, and my older sister came to visit Mom on Sunday. We went through a lot of old pictures and photo albums on Sunday. I found some great Hunter family information for a second cousin I had just met virtually through Ancestry. Second cousins are the great-grandchildren of the same great-grandparent.

It was joyful for me to stay with Mom for a couple of days. Three nights in Western Kansas. Did me a world of good.

On Monday morning, Labor Day, we left Stockton for Abilene and then went onward east to Illinois. That will be part three of this four part series about my birthday trip.

"I knew better than to look in my mirror - I never looked back." Dad to me about the day of the move.