There's No Place Like Home

Last weekend, I drove down to Louisiana.  My grandpa (or Paw Paw as we call him) had had a heart attack several days beforehand and was now home from the hospital.  At 96 1/2 years old we call him the Miracle Man with good reason!  This time, however, it's different.  Even though he's been released from the hospital, his congestive heart failure is here to stay and he will be on hospice from here on out.  Because I didn't know how much time he had left, I felt strongly that I should make the trip down to Thibodaux and spend a few days with family.

Emily had flown down the weekend before, while Paw Paw was still in the hospital.

She and Amy made a poster with all the grandkids and great-grandkids names on it.

While there, I was able to see several aunts and uncles and quite a few of my cousins, and -- as an added bonus -- my sister Amy and brother Freddie were there as well.  {My mom had already been planning to move back "home" to Thibodaux at the end of March (with Freddie and Amy there to help) before Paw Paw even went to the hospital.}  While I think it's true that "home" is wherever your family is, there's something special about going back to the place where you come from.  And even though I didn't actually grow up in Thibodaux -- my hometown of New Orleans is a little over an hour away -- so many of my happiest childhood memories took place at my grandparents house that it always feels like home when I turn into the long gravel driveway.  As a kid, I was in heaven running all around and playing in the huge front and backyards with my siblings and cousins.  As an adult, it's a different experience.  With this trip in particular, I probably spent a dozen hours just sitting and rocking on the front porch, watching the world go by while time seemed to paradoxically stand still.  The old live oak dripping with Spanish moss in the front yard and the comforting presence of the Bourgeois Meat Market across the street have been a constant in a world that likes to spin madly about it.   To sit and to rock on this front porch with that view at hand is to feel the kind of peace and contentment that can only be ascribed to "home." 

These are my cousin's kids climbing on the old oak, but we did the same thing when we were kids.  Me and Amy and Freddie and my mom were trying to guess at how old the tree is -- our best estimate is that it's been there for almost 400 years.  

Inside the old barn -- it used to house Paw Paw's boat, but now it's a catch-all for tools and other storage.

The personal trainers from Paw Paw's gym came to visit him once he was home from the hospital.

Freddie and Amy kept me good company on the front porch.  :)

This is the house my mom is moving into -- it's right next to the house she grew up in.

I'm the oldest grandkid and Anne is the youngest.  I'm 41 and she's 11.  :)

Paw Paw reading "Unbroken."

I had to get a little treat for Maxwell from the meat market.

He really LOVED his pupsicle.  Hahaha.

This place is special.  The house alone has seen over a hundred years of living within its walls -- my Paw Paw grew up there, as did my mom and her siblings.  Originally a carriage house with slave quarters upstairs, my great-grandparents settled there in the early 1900s and Paw Paw was actually born in the front room of the house -- in almost the exact same corner where he will most likely die.  I think there's something kind of beautiful and symbolic about that -- his life coming around full circle, beginning and ending in the same place.  And whether he passes soon or hopefully later, I'm so grateful that I was able to see him and listen to his stories one last time. 

Lester Charles Bourgeois

He was in the Air Force during WWII.

Paw Paw took over the meat market from HIS dad and built the current building across the street.

He LOVED to fish.

And he LOVED to golf.