We seldom visited my grandparents. My dad’s parents live around the Cincinnati, Ohio area. For several years they lived on a farm, complete with chickens, a mule, horses and a lane penned in by walnut trees. It was a long drive to get there from our home in either Dayton or Beavercreek.

It reminded me of the song, ‘over the river and through the woods’ as that was what we did. Along the way we passed by a horse-meat processing plant in which they made soap or lye, I don’t recall which.

We also drove near huge grass-covered mounds, shaped like miniature spaceships. Later, when I could read, I discovered that these were burial sites, called Mound City, built by the Hopewell people.

We never stopped to investigate, something I regret to this day. I was only fourteen years old when we left Ohio, to never return.

The point is, my grandparents lived so far away that we visited them at most twice a year.

My mother’s parents lived even further away, in Gallipolis, Ohio. At that time it was rural, dotted with farms and ranches. The most famous was the Jimmy Dean ranch. Back then he was known as a singer, cowboy and movie star. With his money, he invested in top caliber hogs which became the infamous Jimmy Dean sausage. His ranch was easy to spot, for a huge likeness of the man himself sat in front of a white picket fence.

My grandparents rented a small one-bedroom bungalow on the crest of a hill overlooking the Ohio River, just south of the Gallipolis Damn. They owned little. Neither could read and write beyond a first-grade level. Neither had a working knowledge of math, but my grandpa knew the value of things and knew what he owed.

Growing up my mother’s family moved frequently, following work. Most of the time Grandpa was an itinerant farmer, renting a small section of land from the owner. He learned to grow many different crops and to tend for just about any animal found on a farm.

My dad’s parents had money and dressed like it. My mom’s wore tattered and patched faded gingham dresses and overalls. Grandma Riske had expensive store-bought shoes. Grandma Williams wore worn-out boots too old for Grandpa to wear.

The Reiske’s house had all kinds of pretty things on display. Doodads on shelves and in bookcases. Some might have been valuable, but I was too young and too naïve to know.

There was nothing on display in the Willaim’s house. Not one picture on the wall, no figurines on top of flat surfaces, no silver in drawers and no lace curtains in windows.

The Rieske’s were good, kind people. They offered me unconditional love, despite never wrapping me in a hug. They must have seen the shy, scared little girl and decided to let her be. I always felt safe with them, even though words of safety had never been uttered.

The William’s were standoffish. I didn’t know that term when I was young. I just felt something off. They said few words to me, never complimented me, never engaged me in conversation. They hadn’t set boundaries, so I had no idea what was okay to touch and where it was okay to go. When with them, I felt uneasy, too afraid to say or do something wrong.

With the Reiske’s I never worried about those things. The last home of theirs I remember had a basement with a refrigerator filled with sodas, shelves with snacks of all kinds, and a swimming pool that I could use without supervision. They trusted me more than my own parents did.\

Grandpa Rieske died first, after we’d moved to California. When he had a stroke, my dad flew back, succumbing to pressure from his half-siblings. Grandpa survived but was never the same mentally. When he passed away, even my dad didn’t fly there. Grandma moved to California for a bit, but was unhappy. She missed friends. She returned to Ohio, where she died a few years later. We didn’t attend her funeral either. We also didn’t inherit anything from the Reiske’s despite there being nicknacks that might have been fun to have.

When Grandma Williams died, we attended her funeral. It was held in a small, whitewashed chapel at the top of a hill. In the distance cows lowed. It was calm and peaceful.

When Grandpa Williams died, my dad said refused to allow us to skip school. My parents went without us.

My mother came home with one small token from their lives: a homemade tool for removing the kernels from an ear of corn. She was angry that her siblings took all her mother’s quilts, even the older ones that were faded and worn. Each of those quilts held memories, for the fabric came from old shirts and dresses, Grandpa’s overalls and bits and pieces of curtains she’d made. Grandma had also taken scraps of fabric, twisted them up, and rolled them into coiled throw rugs.

My mother didn’t get one of those, either.

Many years later, as my mother’s health failed, she asked my siblings and I what things we wanted from her home. Unbeknownst to me, my siblings chose first. I wanted the rocking chair. My mom loaned it to me when our kids were small, It sat in the bedroom, or nursery. I’d rock my babies to sleep as I sang songs to calm them.

I thought she’d let me keep it as it was pretty worn out, but as soon as the last child was no longer an infant, my mother wanted the rocker returned.

It held memories. Times when I sat up all night when my child refused to sleep or was ill. Times when I was too exhausted to get down on the floor to play. Times when my heart ached. When I regretted quitting work to stay home with a fussy child. Times when I missed coworkers who never called.

The one thing I wanted was that rocker. My sister claimed it even though she’d never used it. Never had a child.

I walked around the house, trying to find something, anything that held meaning. I gave up when all those had been claimed.

Shortly after failing to claim a token of my inheritance, my mother placed something in the palm of my hand. It looked like a bottle-cap remover with a bit of leather attached. She told me that her father had designed this tool to remove kernels from an ear of corn.

The leather was stained with his sweat.  The leather had gouges from his fingernails.

The metal was rusted from lack of care.

It was now mine, the one personal artifact I have. It represents love lost, lives missed, places seen and forgotten.

It isn’t worth anything. In fact, when I die and my kids go through my things, they’ll wonder what it is and why I kept it.

I’ve told them many times, but they have forgotten.

All these years later, going on sixty now, I haven’t forgotten.