The grandest place of all.

Come to think of it, my life has been divided into segments. Connected to places. That's the way I like to think of my life. Focused on the places I've lived. And my experiences there. So very different. My life has been affected, in large part, by my environs. I was born in Chicago. But the first place I consciously remember is Iowa. Before I even started school. So I must have been 2 or 3. And I remember waking up in the dark. And suddenly seeing the light of day. A sunrise. And I told my mother about it. Up to then, it was probably the most profouund experience of my life. Still etched in my conscious memory. The family moved back to Chicago. Again, before I started school. And I remember my aunt Anna taking me to a graveside funeral service. I did not yet understand death. My aunt told me that when people die, they get buried. Put in the ground. I saw the big hole. And a lady seated on a bench. Crying. I thought she was the one that died. And she didn't want to be put in the ground. I couldn't blame her. And I thought, how awful. For the first time, I became aware that I didn't wanna die. Because I'd be forcibly buried. Anyway, my mother told me that when I was very young, the family was homeless for a while. During the Great Depression. And that we lived out of my father's car. In Chicago. I don't remember that. Or maybe I just assumed that was a natural home. The first home I truly remember was the basement in my Uncle Carl's house in Chicago. We shared the basement with my paternal grandparents. That's where we lived when I started school. Kindergarten. On the first day, I cried. Guess I was still mama's baby. Another time, I got lost while walking home from school. And I cried again. Gawd, I must have been a real crybaby. Anyway, after that, I don't remember crying any more. And while I was in the first grade, the family moved to a small town, Watertown, in southeast Wisconsin. Where I completed elementary school and high school. And then I'd be off to college in a place called Sheboygan. And into the military. Stationed in Germany for two years. Then into newspaper writing jobs in Fond du Lac in Wisconsin, Lakeland and Vero Beach in Florida and the St. Paul Pioneer Press in Minnesota. Where I married and raised a family. My dear Jeanne died of Alzheimer's after 38 years of blissful wedded life. But here I am, almost 5 years later, living with my Italian true love in, of all places, Sardinia, an island in the Mediterranean Sea. Maybe this is the grandest place of all. --Jim Broede