Not an object or a thing. But like another family member, our family farm in Tennessee has played a huge role in my life. It’s the place I feel most at home, where I feel closest to my parents and grandparents, and where my longing for them is heaviest. A couple of weeks ago, I made my way around the farm, making a mental map to carry with me and remembering:
• This is the spot where I first learned how to ride a horse.
• On that hillside, I flipped my 3-wheeler, which led dad to replace it with a 4-wheeler.
• That’s the pond where my sister and I tried ice skating and fell through. Luckily, it was only knee-deep.
• This is the hill where the truck started rolling with my little sister inside after I forgot to put it in park while opening the gate.
• We used to sled down that hill. I still wince remembering when Gran went down on that red round sled, hit the jump, and tumbled head over heels.
• That cluster of trees once held the perfect grapevine for swinging.
• Here, I saw a mother skunk with three babies trailing behind her in a line.
• Along this fence row, we picked so many blackberries.
• That pond had ducks and adorable ducklings.
• We picnicked under that tree; Mom brought our little blue plastic table with the red chairs.
• Right there, we gathered enough walnuts to sell and buy a Cabbage Patch Kid!
• There used to be a muscadine vine growing along that tree line.
• Here, I was thrown from my horse.
• In those woods, Pa and I found a newborn calf.
• See those bones? I called that spot the cow graveyard.
• Every spring, this hill fills with wild daffodils. As a kid, I called them buttercups; I didn’t know they had another name until I was an adult.
• That’s the largest tree on the farm. It takes eight people to wrap around it, and during World War II, German prisoners of war sat under it.
• In that valley, there’s a sinkhole where the tractor got stuck.
• Down there is a spring. When I was little, there was always a cup hanging on a branch so you could stop and take a drink.
• Up that hill, there’s a cave so deep that when you drop a rock, it takes forever to hear it hit the bottom.
• We stood, right there, gazing at the Bethlehem Star the night my dad died.
• I can still picture the barn that used to stand over there.
• We got into a lot of trouble for riding our 4-wheelers in that field: a hay field.
• Here is where we worked cows, which my sister loved and honestly made me want to be a vegetarian.
• A couple of hundred years ago, there was a house on that hill. The well is still there.
• Hearing a pack of coyotes howl, right here, sent a chill up my spine.
Anyone who has loved a place understands that land, trees, hills, rocks, and flowers are more than objects; they leave their mark on you. Nature is not just a thing, but part of God’s good and beautiful creation, given to bless us. Do you have a place that has changed you?