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It’s winter, so humor me.

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I’ve only been back to my hometown in New Jersey once in the last 38 years. Why so long between visits? Because as much as my husband loves to travel, New Jersey is never his vacation destination of choice. Go figure.

But in the fall of 2014 after my mother passed, I made the decision to spread half of her ashes at Sandy Hook Beach…. the seashore she loved.

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It was a bittersweet trip for me, filled with childhood memories and many, many tears.

We spent a week in and around my hometown and while some things had changed, I was amazed at how much had remained exactly the same. We walked through the park where I played as a child..

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Wandered around the downtown area…

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Where, admittedly… some buildings had gotten brighter.

We ate in the same restaurants I did when I was young, visited my elementary school and the railroad station where I caught the train to NYC.

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We even strolled among the deer at the cemetery searching for my great grandfather’s grave.

And after putting it off as long as I could, it was time to visit my old house. I was reticent to do this, knowing I would probably break down at the mere sight of it.

We strolled the neighborhood past my Aunt Florence’s house…

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And then past my grandmother’s house.

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It was a beautiful old place when I grew up….

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But as I stood in front of it with my old photo album, choking up with memories… I was awed at the magic the current owners had wrought.

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Long story short… the owners saw me, took pity on my emotional state and invited us in for the grand tour. I wish I’d taken pictures of the interior ( it was lovely! ) but didn’t want to look some crazed stalker (as opposed to the crazed blogger who would later post about it).

I was a bit of a mess at that point…. memory lane can be a sad place when all your loved ones are gone. But we soldiered on down the road to the house where I grew up.

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The front looked relatively the same…

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But when we turned the corner and I peered around back, everything had changed.

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Two large additions had been built which swallowed our back lawn, the glassed in porch with the beautiful polished slate floor had been removed, the brick patio torn up and my father’s lovingly tended rose garden had been turned into a playground.

My husband asked if I wanted to knock on the door, but I couldn’t. To be honest, I could hardly breathe at that point.

And though the old saying ‘you can’t go home again’ is trite? It’s also very, very true.

I had to walk. And made it as far as the little park down the road that runs along the river…

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While parts of it were overgrown…

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I managed to find a bench in the same spot as the bench where my father and I used to sit and feed the ducks when I was a child.

It was there that I completely broke down and sobbed for my recently lost mother and my long lost father.

I knew going back to my hometown would be hard, but damn. I was an emotional wreck the whole time.

So tell me, have you ever gone home again?

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