I'm going home tomorrow--to my rural hometown in N.C. that is!!! Whoever came up with the line "There's no place like home" described my feelings exactly. Both sides of my family are from there & my great grandparents and beyond all grew up there and it was the site of my entire childhood summers, just like my mothers.
When she was a child, she grew up in NY and NJ but helped my grandfather and his brothers build our house down there one summer. From then on, it was their vacation home until my grandfather retired and my grandparents and Uncle Donny (who's my cousin by blood but adopted by my grandparents, making him my uncle, although he's a year younger than me and more like my brother through age and love) then moved down there. My immediate family and I had been living with my grandparents for a year until that time, when I was about three, after I'd spent my first year in Atlantic City and the next two in our NC home. Once Grandpa and Grandma moved,we too then moved out of the two family home once shared with them and another family up here and into a different two family nearby.
Most people in our community down south are my extended relatives from different lineages, a tradition carried over from traditional African cultures. I've continued to go there one to three times p/year throughout adulthood. As soon as my mother retired, she had moved into our home there within a month. She started remodeling and creating her own gardens right away and you can see here some photos of the many upgrades she has made (including one showing my niece Amina (Janet's daughter)and her best friend having an art auction of their work in our yard when they were around 12. Lynn, my mother, and I were vying for the treasured pieces. :) There's another one showing Lynn, Amina, and our other nieces and nephews (Donny's kids) playing and lying together on pillows on our living room rug, after telling spooky stories to each other.
On Saturday, I'll be in my oldest friend's 2nd wedding down there. I'll post the pictures below after her wedding. We've been close since I was age 5 and she, 6. Her parents are still amongst our closest neighbors there. Her sister, who Lynn was very close to, married one of my paternal cousins. Her brother was Lynn's childhood sweetheart from the time we were little kids until he passed during a pool accident when he and Lynn were just 21. He and Lynn always planned to marry and he'd recently moved to Atlanta because that is where she knew she wanted to live after college. I know he and Lynn are finally together again, living happily ever after on another plane...
I wish I could just go home to stay and once I retire myself, I'm so there! A few days after our father's funeral on 10/22/06, (He died the day after my sister Lynn's funeral-- after almost dying a few hours before her wake), I began writing 2 pieces about Lynn & our home downsouth which we've all always cherished. Here is one of them:
RAINBOW'S END & LYNN
There’s a reason we call our home here in N.C. “Rainbow’s End…”
It’s not only the abundant bounty of nature that instills everyone who steps foot on our land with an indescribable peace or the endless beauty, creativity, warmth, & coziness that envelopes u as soon as u walk up the steps & pass through the threshold. It’s this pot of gold called love & joy that are the ties which bind not only the blood of this household but the extended family & friends who’ve become family & also feel at home once they arrive here. Lynn Chante Whitley has always been one of the greatest treasures in this pot.
Although we feel that a part of ourselves is missing, we know she now lives on in spirit & amongst the butterflies still fluttering about in our gardens when they should have been long gone by this time of year. And when we replace her & my other sister Janet’s favorite flowers, the sunflowers, that Lynn planted in her 1st & only garden here last spring (& our beloved grandparents planted here many moons before), we’ll not only remember the precious memories of her undying spirit, love of life, & what seemed to be her last yet unforgettable event, that precious farewell ceremony with all its magical balloon, dove, bonfire, dancing, twinkling eyes following us everywhere, & butterfly moments, we’ll also remember to treasure all who made this transitional time so much easier. We are eternally grateful for the treasure that is you & we hope you, too, will treasure all of your loved ones while you still have them & the beauties of nature like Lynn did.
Join me if you will, & think of her each time you go to the beach or see yellow butterflies & if the spirit moves you, try planting/giving sunflowers to those you treasure in her memory so that they, too, may bask in the sunshine that these beauties, like she, will forever emit through wonderful memories. Just as the butterfly has undergone life transitions from egg to caterpillar to pupa …before reaching its fullest potential, we know Lynn has gone through the cycles of life from an embryo to a fetus, a babe to a child, and an adult to… a spirit in that special place where she’s been given her wings.
She’s flying amongst & above all whose lives she touched with the nectar of her sweetness & who continue to keep her alive in the sasa by speaking her name. Wherever we are, there is she; waiting until the day we’ll be able to fly beside her & our other loved ones in our heavenly home…at the other end of the rainbow.
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