Dreams of Home: Eaves in the Trees

An email to my mother in July 2000, 8 months before my parents' health worsened and they came home to Minnesota from New Mexico, for good:

I just had a dream last night with Dad in it...I was out in the pasture by the barn, Sunny's barn, that is, and looked up into the branches of those trees that were in and around the corral area, and up in the branches, Dad had installed eave troughs to drain rain water from the trees like on a house. They were painted a rusty red, barn color, beautifully painted, as Dad always painted everything...I have NO idea why he put them up there, but I thought, don't they look beautiful? Don't even the trees look beautiful?

When I think of home, I think a lot about the trees. I love the big canopy of trees that surrounded the house, like big arms hugging us. They kept us cool in the summer, provided a 'jungle gym' for the squirrels to run across and hop down from then scamper over the roof, for the birds to build little villages in each with their own nests and families. Walking over tons of acorns in the fall, crunching under my feet, and raking leaves in the fall, working like mad to make the biggest possible pile, just to run like crazy a few times and JUMP in them for all I was worth, laughing madly.. .then the smell of them burning (when you could still burn them!) Drives down the road with Dad with my hands out the window, letting the long grass on the side of the road whip against my hand, stinging but in a strange way feeling good, at the same time feeling the wind rush against my face and drive down my nostrils straight into my lungs.

Or in the back of the nuisance ground trailer, on our way to the nuisance ground, going up the 'new' dike, pausing at the top, looking SO steep and SO far to the bottom where we would dump our stuff, and then going down with a scared but fun feeling in my stomach, jumping off to look around for 'treasures', but usually only finding burdocks. Or begging to be let to go in the '52 Chevy while Dad dragged the road, always fascinated and looking out the back window as the teeth raked the stones back onto the road from the shoulder.. .Well, I could go on and on. These memories have been with me for a very long time, but tend to rush out of my mind at times like these.. .Love you, Mom and Dad.. .Be sure and read this to Dad, Mom.. .I want him to know I think of these things.. .Trish