Welcome Home…
I wrote a bit last week about my fascination with viewing something from a more removed position; a mix of hindsight with a lack of connection to the narrative. While I find myself in a much more personal seat than usual, there is still an outside looking in sense of reflection. While listening to the retelling of my grandmother’s life I find that I can view it semi objectively but also have this new overwhelming feeling of gratitude. Sometimes we really do need to take a few steps back to see the whole picture.
Freshman year of college I remember moving into the dorms with the help of my parents. Just a few doors down from me they recognized another set of parents and began to excitedly greet each other. I believe this was the second time I met Kelsey Sharp and at least the 3rd or 4th time I met her parents. The first time we met was unfortunately at her grandmother’s funeral, known to me only as “Mrs. Sharp”, when I was around 14 years old. I knew that her grandmother and family had a big role in my own grandmother’s first few years here, but that was the extent of my knowledge, or at least the extent to which I was willing to process. Like most teenagers I just generally lumped it in with “more family friends that I barely know” and didn’t ask questions.
Even after getting to know Kelsey, as well as her brother, a little more over the years I still lovingly lumped them in with “family friends”. I will say though, that the kindness I heard about from their grandmother, and that same genuine kindness that seemed to trickle down to the next generation, specifically from their father, had also clearly carried over to Kelsey and her siblings. Regardless of how dismissive I’m sure I was at times as an angsty teen carrying well into my 20’s, they always met me, and anyone I witnessed them encounter, with genuine kindness, especially Kelsey.
I have seen them less and less over the years. As we get older, we tend to create our own “family friends” in which we begin to broadly introduce our own children to… but in some odd way, especially after writing this week's post, I think I finally get it. I finally get just how important and special this family was to mine, and how special it is having each generation tied together with their own connection, if even just a small one. To step back and really take in exactly HOW important this one individual’s decision was; to not only open her home, but in return, her entire family, is really amazing. And while it’s a decision that was made 3 generations before the one I met, it’s apparent that that sort of kindness and compassion was not a generational fluke.
So, I can say from my own experience, I am also very thankful for this family and the role they played in continuing this story that I get to tell, as it would have not been the same without them.
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3 days after Teresa Maria was born, my husband left to go to Urbana IL to look for a job. I was on a pretty set schedule with Tia Florence that revolved around taking care of the two kids. We still had some money left from the 1,000 that we had saved, so he took a train from Chicago and then from Chicago to Urbana and like Oscar had promised Henry was able to stay at the boarding house where the students lived, he got registered at the University for some English classes and then he was set to look for a job.
After the first week he had already found one and then the following week he found another, solidifying two jobs. The next step was to look for an apartment for us. Everything seemed to be moving almost a little too fast. So anyways he called me on the phone and he was very excited because he had just met his host family, the Sharps, Virginia and Howard Sharp and their children. As it happened we were the first guests that they had and then after Mrs. Sharp ended up being very much involved with the foreign student exchange program and became a host family for many students throughout the years. I felt lucky to be her first family and we really had a wonderful friendship with their growing family over the years. She was really a wonderful lady and helped me a lot during this new and transitional time. She even made some clothes for me because she used to love to sew. I really appreciated her very much and all their entire family did for us.
But anyways, backing up a little bit, we were getting ready to go to Champaign Urbana and started packing everything up. Then one morning a few days before we were to leave, Aunt Florence came with this big huge box of pots, pans, silverware and dishes. It was just about everything that I could possibly need. Uncle Carlos had this nurse and he, Ralph and the nurse went out shopping. When they came back he had a huge box full of clothes, clothes that would last a long time because he had all different sizes for the two kids. Soon after, Henry called and he got an apartment, which was close to what is now Lincoln Square, then the Lincoln Hotel. While it was a one bedroom apartment it was all we needed to start off. So here we are getting ready to go to Champaign Urbana and meet Henry there. You have to remember it was 1957 and there weren't a lot of toll roads then, so it took about 7 or 8 hours to go from Elkhart to Champaign, stopping often because of the kids. We borrowed a basket to bring Teresa in and Ralph sat on my lap and we made it to Urbana on a very cold day, February 3rd, and there was Henry waiting for us and so excited to officially be “home” in our new life as a family of four.
