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| Dad told me of how Granddad made $40 a month working for the ranchers, and Grandma another $20 a month taking cream from cow�s milk into town. Dad showed me where Grandma�s garden had been, and where Chokecherry and Thimbleberry bushes were growing along the road up to the cabin. He said Grandma would pick them to make jam and that he used to pick wild strawberries too. I asked him if they were good, he chuckled and said, �They were if you wanted strawberries.�
As I stood there fond memories of my Grandma and Granddad came flooding through my mind. I remember picking strawberries with Grandma in �our� patch at their house in Meeker. I remember spending time in the summer as a little girl at cow camp with them where I helped Granddad with many of the same chores my dad had as a boy. We rode all over the mountains on our horses herding cattle. We saw elk, bears, deer, and lily ponds in bloom. We took �short cuts� back to the cabin that cut the miles in half, but took us twice as long to get there. When we arrived at the cabin Grandma would chew out Grandad and tell him how worried she was that something had happened or that we were lost. There was no getting lost with Granddad, he knew the mountains of the White River National Forrest like the back of his hand, but Grandma always worried. Granddad was still poaching deer and elk, even though the Game Warden lived just across the river, and Grandma was sure we were all going to be arrested. The cabin we lived in was a little more modern than where dad grew up. We had an icehouse to keep food cold, and a coal stove to keep us warm at night. Granddad would take me up to a beautiful field of flowers above the cabin and use his elk bugle to call elk. I remember what an awesome sight it was to peak up and over a log and to see a big bull elk with a huge rack on his head bugling back to find the �other� elk! Granddad taught me how to drive, even though I was only in 5th grade. I would steer and shift, while he worked the clutch. We had a lot of fun driving, but Grandma put a stop to it the day we drove into the icehouse. These are all good memories. But, not all memories are good in our life. You see, my Granddad used to beat my dad. Dad told me that if the child abuse laws had been in effect during his childhood, his dad would have spent most of his life in prison. For many years my dad hated his father. As we leaned up against the old fence that day, I kept wondering how my dad was feeling being back in this place. Maybe to him it was not very beautiful. This was not the first time my dad had been back to Camel Creek since he was a boy. A few years before he had packed hunters to this very spot, and while he was there made a videotape of this place for Sue and I. In the video dad told us of his memories, and how on that day, he realized that his dad did only what he knew to do. He also realized it was all his dad could do to put meat on the table each day. My dad was crying. And on that day, my dad forgave his father. The Grace of God is being able to stand on top of that mountain with my dad and hear the good stories and good memories. The Grace of God was in my dad helping me cherish my memories in the face of his bad ones. The Grace of God was in my dad being blessed with his mom and grandmother, two women that adored my dad, and showed him the unconditional love his Father in Heaven. The Grace of God was in my dad being able to forgive his earthly father and lean on the Grace of his Heavenly Father, the Father that loves him unconditionally, so that he did not repeat the sins of his father. |
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