Last week I had some business to attend to in Chebanse, Illinois.

I grew up in Chebanse, in the same house where my parents lived most of their lives. They both died in that house, ten years apart.

My mothers funeral two months ago had been the last time I was in Chebanse.

I drove by the house. For the first time in 65 years, it sat empty of people and possessions. I slowed down and thought about going inside. But I just couldn’t make myself do it. I didn’t want to see that house empty.

There had always been somebody there. My parents. My sisters. Me. Later, children and grandchildren coming through the door. For 65 years, the house had contained a piece of our family.

Now it contained none of us.

From there I gloomily drove the few blocks to the cemetery and parked in front of the Webber family plot, just inside the entrance. If you drive into that cemetery, ours is one of the first markers you see.

The plot was purchased in 1978 after my sister Tami was killed in a car accident. Over the years, she was joined by my grandparents, aunts and uncles, my father and, two months ago, my mother.

It’s almost full now.

The beloved family dog, Ernie Banks, is there too. Ernie was with us for 15 years, back when all five of us still lived under the same roof. He died not long after Tami, and we decided he belonged with the rest of the family.

So, one rainy night around 1979 or 1980, Ernie Banks joined the Webber family plot.

Don’t tell anyone. It was supposed to be a secret.

For the past 48 years, that plot has been cared for personally by our family. My father insisted upon it. As cemetery plots go, ours is rather nice. The markers are tasteful, everything is kept neat, and the grass is normally green and carefully manicured.

Except for Mom.

The grass above her grave was brown.

I know why, of course. The ground was disturbed only two months ago and the new grass hasn’t had time to take hold. But knowing that didn’t make it any less sad.

I stood there looking at that patch of brown earth and realized how many people who once made up my world were now gathered in that little piece of ground.

As I drove out of town, I thought about my connection to Chebanse.

This was the town where I grew up. My grandparents lived there. My parents lived there. Tami lived there.

It was where I played endless ballgames with my childhood friends. Baseball. Basketball. Football. Ice hockey whenever an Illinois winter gave us enough ice.

Tim, Greg, Donny and Merritt were part of those halcyon days.

They’re all gone now too.

When I got into high school, Chebanse became the town where I chased girls. I have no idea where most of those girls are today. I imagine they’re scattered around the country now, grandmothers themselves, carrying their own memories of a little Illinois town that existed a half century ago.

On my way out, I passed the old gas station my dad rented during the 1960s and ’70s to park his small fleet of trucks. I pumped gas and diesel fuel there. I worked on trucks there. I couldn’t possibly have known that someday I would drive past that building as an old man and see an entirely different world.

That’s the strange thing about hometowns.

The buildings are still there. The streets have the same names. You can drive the same route you drove numerous times when you were 16 years old.

But the people are gone. And eventually you discover that the people were the town.

Chebanse hadn’t really changed that much last week.

I had.

Or perhaps my connection to it had.

The old town had lost its luster for me. It no longer looked the way it did in my memories and probably never would again. On that day, it seemed as bleak as the patch of brown grass covering my mother’s grave.

I turned north onto Interstate 57 and headed home. A few miles up the road, an uncomfortable thought occurred to me.

I might never have a reason to go back to Chebanse again.

And then an even sadder thought followed. Even if I do go back, the Chebanse I would be looking for isn’t there anymore.

Maybe that’s what people mean when they say you can’t go home again.