I’m sitting on the bed in the bedroom of the house I grew up in. It’s not my bed, not the original one that was here when I still lived here. At some point Mom thought it a good idea to replace my mine with this one instead. It’s a double with a brass headboard and it’s pretty comfortable, but it’s not my bed. My bed was a twin with a dark wood headboard that matched the rest of the furniture in my room.
Long ago, my room was semi-converted into both a sewing room and an office. Mom used it for my dad’s business payroll and books after I graduated from college and stopped coming back so frequently. It’s pretty cluttered now. There are piles of paperwork everywhere.
A few echoes of 18 years long past are still here. In my closet is the sneaker-shaped air freshener from Avon, the contents of which have never been changed. I suspect it no longer freshens the air as designed.
The framed picture of a clown I drew in second grade is still framed on the wall. My artwork was autographed by our state representative and for it I won a blue ribbon in the county fair. It’s a true piece of Americana. Further down the wall is the spot I sprayed my first can of silly string. I left the foam there for a month, and the wallpaper was stained a faint blue from the sticky goo that remained.
In the dresser is a box of cassette tapes. I remember a few broken fragments from a song or two of the tapes left. It’s about all I ever remember of any given song, but it’s enough that I’ll take the tapes for a listen on the drive back to Indiana.
It has been three years since the last time I was here and even then it was only for an afternoon. I came to town after our yearly Christmas ski trip to buy my Mom’s Trailblazer from Dad. We stopped at the house only long enough for my dad to get the paperwork for the sale. It was nine months since I had been there the previous time.
Before we moved to Indiana, we were only two and a half hours away. I was the closest of our parents three kids, but I failed to bring my family to visit for that entire time. I realized this only when when my eldest told me he couldn’t remember what the house looked like. Our youngest, 6 this month, didn’t remember it at all. He was excited to see my room… the place I used to keep my stuff.
The stuff and clutter presently reminds me of lazy summer afternoons growing up. After the 45-minute return drive from the closest real mall, I’d retreat to my room with the latest cassette or book I had purchased. Because I had a new thing, it required that I rearrange my entire room finding new locations for my old stuff just to give the new stuff its privileged placement on the bookshelf. It was a silly ritual, but one I relished each time.
Other rooms at the house have taken over to clutter. When Mom was alive, she kept Dad’s study at bay by tasking him when the piles started to creep elsewhere. Honestly, though, she was a collector too. Both their things have accumulated in the house filling the spaces where my sisters and I once ran free through the halls. It occupies the places in the basement where we raced toy shopping carts and baby buggies in the dark with our little flashlights as headlights. Only my sisters’ rooms have escaped unscathed. It’s only so because of my sisters diligent visits and preventative cleanings.
I guess I always figured I could visit anytime. Being so close allowed me to convince - or lie to - myself that I would visit anytime. Each weekend passed, and soon an immense amount of time went by without our visiting Grandpa. Instead, he would come to Appleton and see the kids on birthdays or other significant events. So I didn’t visit.
It wasn’t until today that I realized why I never came. Why I did not want to be here, a stranger in the place I once lived.
I think it is the ghosts.
In each room of our house, I see the ghost of my mom… she wrote notes to herself and they are tacked everywhere. She left slips of paper stuck to boxes reminding her to leave them where they were. Bits of scripture reminding her of her faith are taped to lamps and on the cabinets. Even four years later, my dad hasn’t removed them. I think it reminds him of her. To me, it’s like a ghost - an afterimage of her.
About a year before my mom died, my grandfather had a stroke from which he never recovered. It was at my parents’ house, too, during our Thanksgiving celebrations. I remember the last moments with him. He held his first blood-grandson on his lap for a few minutes. I thought of taking some pictures, but we were enjoying the moment, and I didn’t want to get the camera from upstairs. It turned out to be the last time he’d hold our youngest son. My grandfather went to take a nap, and before long, he started to complain of a massive headache. Not long after we called the ambulance and he was rushed to the hospital. Two weeks later he passed away.
I know this post has taken a depressing turn, but the memories I’m filled with at my parents’ are so strong. Most of them are very good. Our family laughed together often, especially with my grandfather and other relatives. The immediate family always ate dinner together at the round table we used to have in the kitchen, each kid in age order around the table. My Mom made simple foods, but we always thought it was delicious.
All in all, I’m reminded of all of those good memories, but they are tempered by the hole left our lives by those who have already moved on.
There’s interesting quote by John Waters, the independent filmmaker, about how we should all get out more:
“If you’re traveling, you can’t be racist,” Waters says. “You can’t be homophobic. I think the only way you can be racist or homophobic is if you never leave the neighborhood you were born in, and you hang around with stupid people. So I’ve always thought that someone who was really racist should be sentenced to travel, but that’s not very practical.”
Saint Augustine echoes a similar sentiment:
The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.”
(Thanks to Mimi for the quote).
I think its interesting to see those people who have never left their home town and how their view of everything becomes smaller and smaller. As youth, my friends and I all vowed we’d leave our little hometown and do something with our lives. Today, none of us still live there. I think we’re all better for it.
Another article I read called 9/11 is over was about how Americans are living within the shadow of 9/11. We’ve been taking on the fear given to us by the government instead of reaching out to the world and show them what Americans are all about. I think we’ve lost our sense of adventure and openness. From the article:
Before 9/11, the world thought America’s slogan was: “Where anything is possible for anybody.” But that is not our global brand anymore. Our government has been exporting fear, not hope: “Give me your tired, your poor and your fingerprints.”
All of this has weighed on my mind lately, especially as our family uproots to move two states away. We’re giving our kids the opportunity to see something new, and to understand that people are people everywhere. We’re all image bearers, and our differences show a unique piece of our Creator.
Thanks to Coding Horror for the links via Twitter.
As I was reviewing our eldest son’s homework this weekend, he showed me a poster he had created about the process of getting milk from the cow to the glass.
It reminded me of the same one I did 20 years ago.
I have to admit, his has a lot more humor going for it. I remember taking this so seriously.
My kids have been bugging me to help them register to win 5 Firefly cell phones through the Fruit Gushers Phone-a-Day Giveaway.
My son’s Hudson Hornet took third place in the Webelos division of his pack’s Pinewood Derby. Reader Lora requested a play-by-play of how we built our car.
This year for the Cub Scout Pinewood Derby, our eldest decided his car should be the Fabulous Hudson Hornet. Primarily this is because of his favorite character Doc Hudson in the Pixar film, Cars. We detailed it as Marshall Teague’s #6 Hornet.
Best of all, his car placed 3rd in the Webelos division!
uhri.com - where a picture is worth about 9 3/7 words.
According to official records, my Dad’s birthday isn’t until tomorrow, but in Czechoslovakia where he was born, the records office wasn’t open when he was born on the night of January 17th.
I have my own personal holiday each fall. I call it “Picture Changing Day”. It isn’t set on any particular day; in fact, it is pretty random. Picture Changing Day is the day I bring in new 5×7 pictures of the boys and put them in the picture frames on my desk at work.
What makes that so special? The fact that I keep all of the old pictures in the same frame, each older picture stacked beneath a newer one. I only open up the frame on Picture Changing Day, so it is the only time of the year that I see how much my little men have grown.
Each week, our youngest learns a new letter of the alphabet at day care. As part of the activity, the class comes up with words that start with the letter for that week. While most of the children think of words during their classroom time, our youngest likes to think of words at home. Normally, he makes me write them all down and the teachers tack the 3×5 card to the letter wall when he brings it in.
Last week he came up with about 75 words that started with “G”. Guacamole, Girard, ginger, geese and grow all made his list. As I helped him with it, I noticed he had missed a very simple one.
“You missed one,” I said. “It’s a fruit.”
He looked at me with a furrowed brow as he tried to think of a fruit that started with “G”.
“It’s round,” I offered.
He continued to think.
“You eat them for Sunday Night Supper ™.”
He thought some more.
I gave him an easy one: “They come in bunches.”
He smiled at me with the blank look that told me he hadn’t a clue.
“They can be green or red.” I smiled back.
Suddenly a look of excitement came over his face as he realized the answer:
“Ga-matoes!”
My wife has been in New York this week for business. While we miss her terribly, there is one little perk I was left with this week: I got to drive our new Toyota Avalon.
To convince her I could be trusted with her new car was an arduous task. There were training videos, simulators and waivers to sign. Assurances were made and above all the Golden Promise: “I promise to park far away from any other car to prevent door dings.” You simply can’t park next to some guy with a rusting Escort and a bad disposition and trust your door won’t get dented.
Now, with her out of town, and my general fear of all things stove, oven and spatula, there was no way I was going to cook dinner last night. After a lengthy and delicate negotiation with the kids (who knew there was such a difference in the grilled cheese sandwiches at different restaurants), we settled on a nice dinner at T.G.I. Fridays.
I pulled into the parking lot and found the most distant row without any other cars and parked. Our dinner went without incident, but as we trekked back across the windswept parking lot, I saw a few other cars in our row. Fear swept over me momentarily, but as we got closer I realized that both the new Caddilac and the new Corvette had kindly parked with an intervening stall between them and the Avalon. I sighed a breath of relief. Their wives must have had the same Golden Promise.
Best of all, I had started the “new car paranoia” parking row! I love being a trendsetter.
