Out in farmland Nebraska, the highways are straight and curve very little, and you won't travel a mile without a cornfield out your window or an old white farmhouse. With trees so tall and full, it makes you think they've been growing there since the farm first began.
To touch an old house and feel its stories seep right through you. I could barely keep myself in the car as we drove along those quiet farm roads. How much the old walls have seen. Baked in hot suns in the drought while cornfields wilted, weathered and braving an unbroken land, and storms that wiped a man's dreams from his heart.
How many tears have you borne? How man souls have you sheltered from winter and watched them grow?
Oh, this country. And I loved it. Loved it as if my soul had filled right up with it and couldn't hold it all. I did not want to leave it behind and this world of green, and trees along the rivers, and farmers.
For now, I love it more than our wild golden prairies. And I wish I could have succumbed to their silent plea for me stay forever.
We went to the Cutler's after the graduation. And Laura said from the driver's seat, "You'll love the Cutler's house."
And there is no unearthly reason why I didn't. Yellow and gabled and beautiful. Rockers on the porch, complete with a fluffy gray cat. I wanted to stay, to know a place such as this, cause I never had.
A drive filled with welcoming people, happy and free. And you weren't afraid of 'em and their strange new faces. Not a one.
You wanted to consume them, to take in all that they were.Their new, fresh voices, breathing out laughter and smiles. I could have listened all day if there hadn't been the promise of spending time with Laura, Grace & Co.
And Maddie was sweet. Like Mrs. Cutler. Small and red haired, with friendly smiles, and ready to tell you God was good, always had been. Congratulations on your graduation, Maddie!
And right out back, just over a slip of lawn and a few trees, the cornfield. Nothing sprouting yet, and Mr. Cutler may have been planting in a different field this year, but by now it's probably knee high by the Fourth, and clean up to your shoulder!
She had a cute, cute photo booth.
With hats and play pistols and handkerchiefs. We all took pictures there which are sadly lacking in this post! I will find one soon! Thank you, Isabel, for taking them!
All of Maddie's many accomplishments! She's done so many things.
And of course a game of football/ultimate!
Mrs. Brown chatting with friends, and Mrs. Cutler. And there's that dear girl I love...
Grace said she loves Isabel's hair. And watching her sitting there, curls and red all flowing, I loved it, too.
Mr. Cutler's got a happy, deep voice, and it's southern and welcoming, and you have to laugh when he laughs. And he and Mrs. Cutler just were. I never saw them together, but they were. You hear people's stories and you see them, and watch them, and you just love them. I revel in the glory of just being able to love at all. And what better things to love on this earth than people? With all their scars and wounds, cracks in their soul, self-inflicted or hurt by others, there isn't anything else more important to love.
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