My Own Beginning

I've taken a couple Creative Writing classes and one of the prompts that has come up more than once is entitled "Beginning at Your Own Beginning" I feel like as continuously changing beings our lives are comprised of thousands, maybe millions, of beginnings. My beginnings involve several different people, occur in hundreds of different places, and always end a little differently, but they typically always have glimpses of my family in them. No one knows where their endings will occur, who will be holding their hands when that time comes . . . but I have never questioned the true beginnings of my heart.

Riding in the car down the interstate I am in the front seat while my mom drives us to the nursing home where Grandma Mitzy lives; the sounds of cars whir and buzz by the safe bubble that is my mommy and me. The car smells of gardenias and baby powder; a smell that, to this day, brings a smile to my face and love to my body. After we visit my sick great grandma we go to McDonald's and to see my handsome grandpa. I watch T.V. and see my grandpa's white hair and his ornery smile surrounded by tartar sauce from his fish sandwich. I hear my mommy's laughter ring like a solid bell on a clear, spring day; I imagine I will never be happier than in this moment.

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His name was Max Duff; he was tall, stout, and white bearded. He always wore blue and white pin-striped bib overalls; he always had a pocket watch and high lighters in the front pockets of this ensemble.
He had rough hands and a froggy voice, but his heart was filled with love and crafted out of gold.
There were four of us; Jenna, Nick, Zachary, and me; the four Ohio grand kids. Granpy got roped into baby sitting us one sunny, clear day. We were bored; we were hungry. He piled us into his old pick-up truck and at a neck breaking thirty miles per hour drove us all to the golden arches.
In the Happy Meals that day were sunglasses; pink for girls and blue for boys. We went back to the big white farmhouse and set up lawn chairs in the front yard. Gran got home as we sat in our circle with grandpy and ate our chicken nugget Happy Meals. She got her camera out and yelled for us to look at her.
Our family has a snapshot of the day; cool, crisp, blue skies, fold out chairs and four grandchildren circled around the best man there ever was (wearing our McDonald's shades, of course.)

Those are a couple of my beginnings . . . where are your beginnings? Who do they include?

-Stephi D.