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Even though I haven't been able to return to South Dakota since our parents moved to Houston in 2010, it is comforting to know that our farm is still there. Sometimes I daydream about turning into the long driveway again and taking inventory of what has changed over the years. Today I learned that our barn has been torn down by the current owner. It wasn't a complete shock since I already knew that the roof had fallen into disrepair, but it was still devastating to know that it's gone. This building was the setting for countless memories. I can almost smell the straw that was neatly stacked in the top floor. I spent many hours there, stealthily following our mother cats to find where they'd stashed their kittens. I rescued baby barn swallows that had fallen out of mud nests, ever (wrongly) convinced that I could raise them. This was one of my refuges when chased by evil roosters or maniacal geese. It was here that I had an encounter with an emaciated opossum, which I mistook for a pitiful cat and came within inches of giving it a nice pat on the head. This barn housed a wide variety of animals over the years. We were able to watch piglets being born and bottle-feed calves. There were sweet lambs and soft bunnies. We gathered warm eggs from beneath hens and fed more cats than we could count. We played hide and seek in the dark with our childhood church friends in the fields around the barn. In later years, it became a storage spot for Dad's '61 Ford Galaxie. He'd patiently given me driving lessons in this car that lacked power steering. We set up a volleyball net in front of the barn after church potlucks on our farm. In the bedroom I shared with my sister, we could look out the window that was adjacent to our wall of Shaun Cassidy posters and catch a glimpse of the barn. Dad's bountiful garden was tucked behind the barn. He spent contented hours in the shade of the building, digging up potatoes and weeding green beans. While I'm thankful that photos and memories can stand the test of time, the world feels a little less magical once again. https://youtu.be/qkP6Tf79UrM