Walking to my class the other day, I took notice for the first time of how many students were walking and talking on their cell phones. Here we all were, on our way to a variety of destinations, all here on this campus growing as people emotionally, physically, and mentally - and sharing a few moments of our day with some other person via hand-held technology. I wondered who they were all connected to at that very moment - who was sharing in this walk to class? So often we underestimate the importance of the relationships we maintain throughout our lives - the ones that we most often take for granted.
In the late 1970s, in an effort to start a new life for herself as an independent young woman, my mother moved from her home in Orchard Park, N.Y., to a small apartment in Lakeland, Florida.
She had lived in the same house since she was born. She had grown up with the neighborhood children in a small town where everybody knew everything about everyone else. Which was a wonderful experience as a child, but there comes a time when a person needs to spread her wings to see just how far she can fly on her own.
It was difficult. The mornings were already warmer than midday summer in the world she had grown up in. The afternoons were so hot that people avoided the outdoors at all costs. Her long hair, once a striking feature, was becoming an inconvenience - like an extra clothing layer that stuck to her sweaty neck and shoulders. There was a tree outside that reached right over her back door, so that when she opened it in the morning, giant cockroaches would fall from its branches and scurry around her feet into the apartment, to disappear . until nighttime. The people were different. Sometimes her patients at the medical clinic didn't understand her "northern accent."
So she made a new life for herself. She cropped her long blonde hair into short curls that clung close to her head. Every morning, careful not to disturb the Cockroach Tree, she'd sneak outside to go to work, where she spoke with a southern drawl she had almost unconsciously adopted. She did her shopping in the evening when it was cooler, and each night as she went to bed, she set her glasses on her nightstand next to a hammer - for the stray cockroach that found its way into her bedroom.
She assimilated, and soon this assimilated life allowed her to truly develop as a young woman - as a new person - a new person she was beginning to like.
But part of her still missed her family. Immensely.
Long distance telephone calls were expensive. Letters were nice but were never the same as hearing the voices of her parents. She missed the warmth of her mother's care, and the support and strength of her Daddy.
One day, a package arrived for her in the mail. Upon opening it, she found a cassette tape. She put it into the tape player.
Her father's voice greeted her ears, followed with the sounds of "home" that he had carefully recorded as he went through the day. It was all there, from the creaky slam of the basement door, to the unmistakable flush of the toilet that had been fought over by five people for twenty-some-odd years.
A few years later, she moved from Lakeland into a house that was two doors down from her parents' in Orchard Park. She hadn't given in or come running back; rather, she was moving to a place where she began to find new happiness as a completely changed woman.
Years have passed. And even though she lives two doors down from her Daddy's house - she still misses him. Immensely. After a decade of a new life back home, her father had died suddenly at the age of 62.
The cassette tape was long gone in a series of address changes. But at the times she misses him most, her mind can still play back the voices and memories of her father that she had collected along the way. For as many changes as we make in ourselves, as many places we move to, and as many things we acquire, memories of those we love are our most precious and lasting possessions.
I've lived in the same house all my life. I've grown up in the same small town that has seemed to be growing along with me, where almost everybody knows nearly everything about practically everyone else.
In the summer of 2001, I moved from my small home in a small town to a huge residence hall in a giant university in Buffalo, where I began a new life for myself, growing from a girl into a young woman.
But although I can see them more often than my mother could see her parents while living in another state, I still miss my family. Immensely.
I miss the hugs, the jokes, the warmth, the close friendship with my mother. And I miss the laughter, the affectionate nicknames, the strength, the support of my Dad.
But in an age of cell phones and family plans, the same love that once came though a cassette tape can be shared more frequently.
I said goodnight to my mother as I heard her taking care of shutting the house down. I heard the slam and heavy lock of the front door. I heard my dog Shadow getting into something she wasn't supposed to. After hanging up with her, I called my dad, who's working the late shift at the manufacturing plant, Moog Inc.
It took a long time for the call to go through. When it finally did, he picked up with his trademark, "HAL-lo." In the middle of telling him about a new class I had signed up for, he broke in with, "Hang on for a minute - I have to wash these parts off." I heard the phone being set down on his workbench, and the swishing sound of the hose that blasted a concentrated stream of air into his machine onto the small metal parts he was making. The sound of tools being replaced and coding being punched into a computer followed. The machine resumed its humming background drone as the phone was picked up again. "Alright, Dink, now go on."
I don't kid myself. Someday, they'll both be gone. I can hope as hard as I can that it'll be a long time from now, but nothing is ever certain.
With the education and experiences I'm gaining in this university, I know I'll change into a new person from the one I am right now, just as I've changed from the one I was before. My dreams of becoming a successful, confident woman will ultimately be reached.
But in all of this change, and in all the years that pass, and in all the uncertainty, I know that there is one thing that will always remain dear to me; one aspect of my life that will never change or disappear.
For as many changes as we make in ourselves, as many places we move to, and as many things we acquire, memories of those we love are our most precious and lasting possessions.
