Heart pounding, palms sweating. Anxiety I wear you
well.
Steps on the sidewalk of my youth; where chalk
drawings are now faded, hopscotch blurred in chalky memory, but uneven pavement
still tries to trip me. Yet I do not falter.
Closer now, I feel so big—so tall. I wasn’t this
size before. Eleven is little, small, tiny, not this giant I have become.
Everything is dwarfed because I am older. Yes, there was a patch of dirt where
two girls made a mud pie. The countless journeys on bicycles, as if they were
cars; stop on red, go on green. My house now is before me.
Dad had it built for my mother. This is where hopes
and dreams were going to come true. Right next door to his mama and papa, the
properties touched and merged almost magically.
The hedges are gone. They used to catch my clothing,
and the rose bushes with their thorns reaching out their slender tendrils—the
scent intoxicating from every color imaginable. Gone now too. Four O’Clocks,
pinchy bush Dad called a Fitzer. But there is the huge picture window and the
porch, yes. One, two, three steps. I am standing where I haven’t stood since
1972.
Tears flow freely. I knew they would. Oh mom and
dad, I feel you here but you are not. I loved you here and that lives on. She
welcomes me; the lady whose home it has been for many years, a smile on her
face as tears make hot trails down my cheeks. And then I enter.
Our front room—living room. Lots of living went on
here. Dad sat by the window in a recliner, and Mom preferred the couch across
the room. I liked the floor, sitting cross-legged watching Gilligan’s Island,
Mannix, The Carol Burnett Show, and more. They talked, laughed, sang, and
taught me about life in this room of living.
Our stone fireplace is still there with small cracks
and crevices—the place where heaping wrapping paper was placed after a big
Christmas morning. Stuffed, waiting for my father to light it later that night
while I watched for sparks to spit from between the screen. I touch it, the
cool feel of the grey stone and my Dad is there too.
We walk into the old kitchen, now the new one, so
updated and lovely. She decorates beautifully; we lived a little plainer, but I
see the back door that led down, down, down steps to play with my cousins
between the two houses. The walkway made of bricks out there and the coolness
of the old grape arbor, now only a single- stemmed vine. And my grandparents
are there.
I turn back into the kitchen and see where Mom stood
many hours cooking, baking, making magic. Her appliances are in the same spots
and though the cupboards are changed, I see them turn to light wood once again.
And my mother is there.
The basement is next and it is here that I see the
most changes. Once only a cellar made of cement floor and cement block walls
painted light green, there is paneling and flooring and different rooms—no
longer the wide open basement to roller skate around and around. Yet one thing
remains untouched. Dad’s little work shop, spare room, he called it. His
shoemaker supplies were in there, and I can smell the old leather and polish.
In there the old cement blocks are untouched and yet I touch and feel the
coolness under my hand and it warms me. The floor is where my dad stood, and I
take his hand in my heart and he squeezes back so gently.
When we take the stairs to the second floor, they
creak in all the right spots. I can’t imagine the sounds that were such a big
part of life now bringing me to life again and sharing their secrets with me.
Little girl, they whisper, you’ve come home.
To the top of the stairs I see my old playroom. It
is a craft room now, lovely and perfect but it was perfect in my time too with
dolls, games, child’s vanity set, record player, view master, colorforms,
Barbie, and Beautiful Crissy. And then there is my bedroom.
The sliding closet doors with the wood grain are
still there and they used to look like scary faces to me as a child, but now
they look happy and they approve of my arrival. I make peace with them and give
away all the scary thoughts I held so close—I give away a portion of myself—the
sad little girl, and a new butterfly emerges from her cocoon and she flies
free.
The bathroom is fairly unchanged, and yes, it is our
old tub but it looks amazing. And it’s the one place I feel a chill run through
me as I picture the day Mom fell there and had the cardiac arrest; but I also
feel a good chill as the thoughts bring me to her Near Death Experience and
amazing good life. No, your life didn’t end here, Mom. In many ways, it began.
We are in my parent’s bedroom next and there is a
huge butterfly on the wall—a decoration which practically bowls me over with
its meaning. Mom, you loved butterflies. They were special to you. I stand
where I used to watch my mom and dad sleeping; making sure they were there,
making sure they were breathing. It’s a good room, filled with sensory
memories—a jewelry box of my mother’s that I loved looking through and her
Evening in Paris perfume; Dad’s little cedar chest of army medals, Lemon
Pledge. Mom sang Bushel and a Peck to me in this room, and Little Lamb. She
called me her shining star.
Down the steps, my hand lightly grazes the wrought
iron railing; I used to play with the bottom part that moved and now I reach
out and slide it up and back and I am eleven all over again.
My visit is almost at an end as I wander through the
back yard. It looks so small to me, and the big tree is gone, and nothing is
the same. But my eyes wander to the flower bed where beloved pets are laid to
rest. My heart cracks as I honor them with a prayer of thanksgiving for the comfort they brought.
I say goodbye and whisper I love you to my house
that is no longer my house. But I will always love you and treasure our time
there, good and bad. I say goodbye to Mom as she disappears into the wind and
the swaying flowers; and then Dad, as he follows her where I cannot go. My
grandparents blow a gentle kiss and they, too are gone.
My peace is made, and it’s taken fifty years. Fifty
years in the blink of an eye. But I am changed, I am better.
