Torch Bearers

When I take visits to the past, I am prone to forget it was an imperfect place, for I’ve chosen to hold on to the happy, the places along the way where I had to snap a mental photograph and put it in my brain album and carry it around for reminiscing purposes-you know, the important bits.  Not that the darker days didn’t teach me valuable life skills or didn’t have their pictures taken, embarrassing as they were, but I will tackle that another day, a separate piece for a different time, and I will leave that where it lies.  Let me have today to be full of tickling brain itches and backwards glancing, no doubt brought on by the strong Northerly winds which have been sweeping out the bad and stagnant air, and similar thought patterns.  Somewhere inside the parched, swirling dust devil is the promise of rain, and this cloud, she’s about to burst.  I have to take it slowly, let it out in small doses, have to seek out the rainbows in between the grey, no matter where I have to go or how I go about doing so.  Yesterday, the weather made up my mind for me, pulled me away from town, and I convinced Dad to drive us to McConnell’s Mill for an afternoon of hemlocks and waterfalls and mossy rocks and fascinating bugs and foliage and silvery fish in clear creeks.

A moment came from nowhere as we entered the park area.  Past Zelienople, past Portersville, and even past the former strip mine area (now reclaimed and growing field grasses and holding pools of quarry water), but not quite to the part of the road that sits in a cleft in the glacier-torn boulders, one thought started a cascade of strong, watery-eyed emotions.  The simple thought was, “Wow, I can remember taking so many people here, in the backs of countless station wagons of many a color.”  In that instant, I split into two separate beings, similar to what happens to me when I get serious about playing the strings, but not the same.  One part of me was in the present, and could function and respond and handle the chore of path walking and being useful.  The other half flew off to worlds of long ago, found a spot in that nirvana moment, and decided to stay a spell.   

It was an escape of necessity, for it was time to let that litany of names tumble forth, time to crack open certain photo albums in the mind and get that misty-eyed gaze created by the act of nostalgia.  All the special friends and closest allies I have had the privilege of knowing in my life have been to the Mill with me.  They all got to stand with me on the wooden platform to watch the water rush over the falls, to cross the creek via the covered bridge, to traipse the rough paths and rock-jump to the water’s edge to study mud pits and insects. 

Another thought piggy-backed in with the original-Some of those people were no longer in this neck of the universe.  The ones who have been in other realms for quite some time, those were the ones I could safely summon to the forefront, for enough moons had passed for me to have only sweet, fond memories of them, the sting of the loss had faded from a few, and so I let Baba and Joey and a few others into the light and walked with them through the trails and over the rocks and over the covered bridge, and we stood on the wooden deck and remained transfixed by the falling waters for as long as possible. 

Back in the present, Holly and Dad were experiencing their own moments, feeling their individual wonders at what was around them. Both halves of me smiled.  I took a mental picture.

The kindred souls of my small, and utterly unique, generation, those in our early to mid 40s, (a span of maybe 4 or 5 years, at most, those birthed from 1968-1972, give or take a year or two) have reached a landmark era.  We are watching aging parents and caregivers.  We have seen some leave the world and have said final goodbyes to friends, family, and loved ones.  It is the beginning of the Age of Loss for us.  I am blessed to have both parents among this world, but I can tell from observing people who have been through the loss of mother and/or father, this must be difficult beyond description.

  A friend said it best for me-“the person you've known for your WHOLE life is just GONE (practically no one else knows you for your whole life and has your back, no matter what - when it all shakes down - differences of opinion and all).”  I got that on a very deep level, because I lost Baba in 2001, the woman who was the Matriarch of the Clan, who bailed me out of countless situations and taught me how to ride out the storms of life, how to be a woman and how to treat the world. I could have never steered this ship through such stormy seas on a rocky shoreline without the original guide’s wisdom.  I was fortunate to be raised under the tutelage of a master of life as Baba.  When she drifted away from my reach, I lost my moorings for a long time, wondered how I would ever make it through the next stage of my life. 

But time did keep steam-rolling on by, and eventually, chunks of the pain were replaced by those softer, sweeter memories of specific events and lessons, traditions and teachings, and it got easier to recall those positive feelings than the sadder ones.  I did allow floods to rush out of me when their power won over, and it had to rain.  Slowly, I learned the ropes of this new age, this advent of the Age of Loss.

That is what drove me yesterday, what took me through tears and through the years.  It had been too long since Dad and I went on an adventure together, and I intended to get back there, even if it was the last time ever.  And that is how I wish to treat every moment with the man who was there for me my whole life. 

Their generation is beginning to move on to more cosmic surroundings, and we must remember them and what they did with us and for us and how they shaped us.  They are, or were, imperfect beings, and we are the same, but we learned from them how to correct our drift and how to navigate around our obstacles, how to stop the cycle of repetition of bad ideas.  As they grew older, they learned as well, learned to soften, to let go, to forgive, to remember only the good parts.  They began to leave pieces of their legacy behind for some brave and noble soul to take up and carry through the next generation. They passed the torch.

We must bear it proudly, hold it high, remember always what lengths were went to in order to give us such a powerful light, such a powerful gift, such a powerful birthright. 

Love and light,

Tanya Waschak