Home
I know the stories.
We lived on the same street just 3 houses down. The family had just done some type of renovation, the husband making changes for his wife and one daughter that gave the ladies a second and larger powder room type bathroom and had added on a well done addition of a living room, enlarging the kitchen some. Looking back I can see the floor plan clearly as we lived in it, and looking back as an adult I can see where the changes had been made. Growing up, of course, that's just how the house was - and since there was a front door in a bedroom it just made sense. Since there were two bathrooms and two bedrooms it just made sense.
When I think about home, I think that's what I think about. We didn't know the street had a cul de sac, we called it a circle, and our house was just beyond the circle. I can remember lots of things - the two porches out front, the color of the house, the hills behind the house. I can tell you what I recall of the pattern in the square tiles on the floor and where the oven was in relation to the stove.
In the many years since my parents moved I avoided driving down the street. There wasn't much reason for it - everyone we knew was gone as long as were we. The neighborhood, like much of our town, has homes torn down and boarded up. I can have those memories without driving through.
Daddy's illness had me driving through a few times. It's not out of the way, in fact it's on the way and was probably more trouble trying to pretend I didn't pass it. The house has changed, a door is gone, a porch is gone, pieces of wood now look rotten and need to be replaced.
When Daddy died I called a cousin of mine and asked of her an odd favor. "Send a Ziploc bag of dirt from your land." The same county he grew up in, but the other side of town. His childhood home now long gone.
I pulled in the old neighborhood, in front of the house where I grew up. It was empty, for rent. That made it easier to walk into the yard and spade up a scoop of dirt.
Two small tea bags are in the polished wood box that hold his ashes. In a way I've buried him as close to him as I could.
We lived on the same street just 3 houses down. The family had just done some type of renovation, the husband making changes for his wife and one daughter that gave the ladies a second and larger powder room type bathroom and had added on a well done addition of a living room, enlarging the kitchen some. Looking back I can see the floor plan clearly as we lived in it, and looking back as an adult I can see where the changes had been made. Growing up, of course, that's just how the house was - and since there was a front door in a bedroom it just made sense. Since there were two bathrooms and two bedrooms it just made sense.
When I think about home, I think that's what I think about. We didn't know the street had a cul de sac, we called it a circle, and our house was just beyond the circle. I can remember lots of things - the two porches out front, the color of the house, the hills behind the house. I can tell you what I recall of the pattern in the square tiles on the floor and where the oven was in relation to the stove.
In the many years since my parents moved I avoided driving down the street. There wasn't much reason for it - everyone we knew was gone as long as were we. The neighborhood, like much of our town, has homes torn down and boarded up. I can have those memories without driving through.
Daddy's illness had me driving through a few times. It's not out of the way, in fact it's on the way and was probably more trouble trying to pretend I didn't pass it. The house has changed, a door is gone, a porch is gone, pieces of wood now look rotten and need to be replaced.
When Daddy died I called a cousin of mine and asked of her an odd favor. "Send a Ziploc bag of dirt from your land." The same county he grew up in, but the other side of town. His childhood home now long gone.
I pulled in the old neighborhood, in front of the house where I grew up. It was empty, for rent. That made it easier to walk into the yard and spade up a scoop of dirt.
Two small tea bags are in the polished wood box that hold his ashes. In a way I've buried him as close to him as I could.
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