Evaporated

Reflections on Greensburg, Kansas, just 10 months before it left this planet in an unholy whirlwind.

We stopped and took this photo as we entered town.

My youngest son, age 10, screamed as we approached a town park. He pressed the window button, let his words slam against the Kansas highway winds.

"Stop! Mom! Look! Look at the grass!"

I pulled the car into a newly-tarred lot. The park stood still, quiet. My boys ran from the car, dove into the sea of green, let their bodies roll down a short embankment. I plopped down, too, slipped off my flip-flops and let the grass caress my feet.

"Mom! I never saw grass like this! Can we move here?"

10 hugged the earth, pressed his face, stomach, legs into the cool morning dew. The grass pressed back, strong, watered, cultivated to withstand two boys and a mom. We didn't know grass, didn't know anything but New Mexican drought. Our backyard consisted of baked clay, of sun-bleached weeds slowly ground into the fine dust that covered every inch of our town.

"Yeah, it's magic, isn't it?"

I fell on my back. The sun hung low on the horizon, sighed good afternoon, good afternoon. I squinted my eyes. The miles behind us began to disappear, and I chanted silent thanks for my decision to roam the two-lane state roads, the forgotten places, on our way to a family reunion in Illinois.

Davis Park. Camping Allowed.

"Boys! Let's stay here tonight!"

We pitched our pop-up dome tent - the one with the grape juice stain along one bottom edge - under the shade of a steady elm. We shopped the local market for bread, for peanut butter and jelly. My boys stood in line behind me, bought old-fashioned candies like foot-long licorice ropes and Boston Baked Beans with their allowance money. The teenaged cashier took her time, announced each item out loud as she punched soiled keys. She wore her blonde hair long, pulled back with a pink plastic headband over a fresh case of acne, her expanded belly pressing against the cash drawer.

She looks so young. So American. So damn young. I wonder how old she is, what she thinks of her growing baby?

I smiled at her, at her unborn child, and when she gave me six dollars change, I slipped the five dollar bill into her open grimy denim purse. I didn't let her see me.

We rested on that grass for hours. My boys didn't want to see the amazing World's Largest Hand-Dug Well. They didn't even want to see the 1000-pound meteorite, though they live and breath all things Star Trek, all things space. They wanted to feel that grass against sweaty summer legs, wanted to toss our Frisbee, run and dive, run and dive, wanted to eat sandwiches and drink drug-store lemonade out of Dixie Cups, wanted to run under the grass sprinklers when they rose from slumber, wanted to sleep with heads outside the tent, wanted to watch those Kansas stars sing us to sweet grass sleep.

10 found a perfect heart-shaped stone in the grass, slipped it in his pocket, slept with it that night, carried it to his bureau at home, placed it in alignment with his starships, his glass penguin, his first-place artist award. The smallness of that Kansas town, its fresh grass meant that much to him.

My boys talked about that park, that night of American wonder, at least once a week after our vacation, through the frigid pale days of our New Mexico mountain winter when they bundled up in three layers and tossed snowballs against our stucco home.

"Remember the grass, Mom? Remember it?"

My youngest son doesn't know one of his favorite places in the whole world evaporated this weekend. He doesn't know. I don't have it in me to tell him, to tell him the grass was torn from its roots, was torn and whipped against the black sky. I can't yet tell him nothing lasts forever.

Comments

[Carroll]

Confirmation (as if there were ever a doubt) that you can write about anything, Birdie -- even grass! What a beautiful memory :-)

[Stever]

WOW! Connection with EVERYTHING... simply incredible Birdie.

So sad, but the grass will return... and the memory is ALWAYS there.

Thanks again!

[Stever]

By the way, we were just looking at that silo on the pictures on the CNN news site... it is still there! (Well, most of it...)

[Miss T]

Beautiful, Birdie. I don't know about the people, but the grass will be back.

[Shrexy]

I know you sometimes doubted, but did you ever wonder what it is you do ? :-))

[Wandering Willow]

Maybe your sons will be excited about going back there one day and watching their beloved town rebuild itself. Maybe it will teach them something important about things not really being lost, and about rebirth of hope again and again.

[Mike]

whoa

[jenn]

kansas green green grass! so green you can breathe it in. tornado alley is close to my heart - the grass grows back, greener than before, the people who stay are strengthened by their resolve. these are such strong people, and i ache for their losses. how wonderful that you have beautiful memories there - you'll have to visit again!

[Lloyd]

wonderful..

those are TWO LUCKY kids!

[Birdie]

jenn - it IS!! My boys were amazed by that grass. I was, too! This spring we actually have grass here! I can't believe it! It's not Kansas grass, though, it scratchy New Mexico sorta grass. We still love it.

Thanks, guys, for the kind words. I didn't realize that Greensburg was the same place until the radio mentioned the big well and the meteorite. I hope the town rebuilds. The people there seemed very solid, very kind. I send all my best wishes and love to them, they need all the help they can get.

[La Cubana Gringa]

Wandered over from Post of the Week...glad I did!

I love how this post made me reach back and remember a handful of memories from times and places that don't exist anymore. Sometimes the smallest things, even the invisible ones, are the most significant.