Opinion : A historic, and personal 12th anniversary...

Friday was an unusual and special 12th anniversary for me, although nothing actually happened on that day a dozen years ago.

Confused? Let me explain.

On the Friday before Super Bowl XXXVII in January of 2003, I had been living in Washington, Iowa for just under three years, working at the newspaper. I started there in 2000, thinking it would be a temporary gig, but I had begun to feel at home at my job and with my clever, creative colleagues. There was Josh, the sports guy, Chris (C.T.) the features guy, both of whom are very funny, and Deb our official orthographer and unofficial creative consultant.

It was also the end of a very horrible year. In the winter of 2002, I seriously injured my left knee and could barely walk for months. The orthopedic surgeon said there was not much they could do, but scheduled surgery anyway, for September.

I spent much of that September at the hospital, but not because of my knee. My mom suffered a stroke and spent two weeks on life support. I canceled my operation; she died Sept. 30.

Exactly three weeks later, my grandfather, Paul, died in a car accident northeast of Vinton.

Everyone who deals with grief, especially with multiple deaths, has his or her own unique variety of emotions.

One of mine was this: I had spent much of 2002 fearing that would be the year my grandfather died, so I tried to get to see him as much as possible. Then, as my mom lay dying, among all of the things going through my mind at the time was: "How could I have missed the signs? Why did I spend the year pondering my grandfather when my mother was going to die?"

The only time I remember laughing during the week of Mom’s funeral was when I was carrying the baby outside and I heard my long-widowed grandfather laughing and talking to some other old guys about some woman he had been seeing.

It was the last time I heard his voice.

For a few years before those funerals, my wife and I had been thinking about some way of relocating to our family farm between Vinton and Brandon for a few years, but wondered how to manage such a change.

In the haze that followed those two funerals, I began to think that maybe it was time to start thinking about moving back to the farm. However, I remembered the advice of the grief counselors to not make any major decisions during those months, so I just sat on my ideas as I sorted out my feelings and tried to figure out how to deal with my knee issue. We had taken our video camera on a visit to grandpa’s place in the spring of 2002, and I had to laugh as I watched us limping along together.

I spent the next several months in a haze; sad, mad at the world, and knowing that I was in no condition to make any significant life choices. So I sort of drifted through the end of 2002.

We made it through the fall and early winter of 2002 the way everyone else who has buried a loved one does, which is to say: I don’t really know.

Then on the Friday before the Super Bowl, I was standing in line at the Washington County Recorder’s Office, waiting to ask for birth and death statistics for a story I was trying to write. As I waited, I thought about the farm thing, and three words came to my mind: "What about now?" Lone Star fans will remember their song by that name; a song about a guy and his girl leaving the place they were and beginning a new chapter in their life.

I didn’t actually decide anything while standing there. I knew that I would need three things before I could make any changes: A house to rent in the Vinton area, a job, and an arrangement with my family to buy a few acres of land on which to build a house.

A few days later, my dad called. He offered me part of grandpa’s land that he had inherited. A couple days after that, an old colleague called. He had a job opening in Vinton. A couple days later, another relative called. She had found a house we could rent.

With very little effort on my part, everything I had needed to come here happened – and it all took place between the Friday before the Super Bowl and Valentine’s Day, 2003.

I first saw the land on which our house now rests the Saturday after the Super Bowl. It’s easy to remember the date: Feb. 1, 2003 – the date of the Columbia Space Shuttle Disaster. As we drove the 89 miles from Washington to Vinton, we listened to the news coverage of the event.

A few of the kids were with me in the car. We drove up what is now our driveway, hearing the weeds brush against the fender of our old Buick. It was unsually warm, similar to this week’s weather, with just a tiny bit of of snow on the ground. We found the field, where I remembered planting watermelon with my grandpa years earlier.

We began walking around, evaluating the place, pondering whether or not it would work for a building site.

And when I got to the top of the hill about 300 feet from the road, it happened.

For the first time since that dreadful September day, I felt the fog lift. The first clear thought that I had had since then was: "I am home. This is where I belong."

I started my job March 1 and began working on my acreage. We moved into our house 18 months later.

That was 12 years ago today. I am sitting now not more than few yards from where I stood that memorial morning. Most of the trees are still surrounding me, although we had to cut down a few that were dying.
And still, it’s as clear then that this is where I belong.

We got back in the car. All the way home, the radio was continuing to tell us about Columbia. All the way home I began making a mental list of what I needed to do.

Feb. 1, 2003, was of course, only a beginning. There were more moves to make, a surprising number of legal and banking hoops to jump through, and lots of ideas considered, revised and scrapped along the way.

But still – regardless of the weather or any other thing happening around me – I still stand among the trees and realize that I am home. I have felt that in a lot of different ways at a lot of different stages in life since then.

So when they say on the news on Super Bowl Sunday that Feb. 1 is a day of a significant anniversary, I know that they are right. In more ways than one.