What does it mean to me?
That is one of the hardest questions I have ever asked myself.
It means so many things.
It's Gram & Gramps' house.
It's where my mom grew up.
It's every holiday, every party, every up and down of our lives rolled into a building. Yet, it's not just a building. It has a soul.
Grandma has lived there since she was 17 and dating her "beau" who became Grandpa.
Grandpa helped Grandpa O-Dad BUILD the second floor, how many people can say that?
Great Grandma Mom lived upstairs--days of sleepovers in her bed with the AM radio playing "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer", "Bumblebee Tuna", "watching" her program (As the World Turns), baseball games, doll heads, many a Miss America pagent, learning how to play solitaire.
Remember the light switch box that grandpa invented for her because she couldn't turn the lamp switch?
Jen, do you remember sleeping on the pull out on the porch upstairs, just because we could? Hiding in the attic rooms. Going through the button drawers over and over and over again because they were Grandma Mom's and they were so pretty and it was amazing that they were there.
The "office" in the den in the upstairs, pretending to be Katrina Dobis, Secretary.
The doll trunks.
The tension lamps. The stained glass windows on the side of the house next to the ginormous hanging mirror. How does that thing stay there?
The gold tea set.
The mirror upstairs with Grandma Mom's little animals on it that we would regift to her wrapped in tissue. And how she'd oo and ah over it as if she'd never seen it before.
Washing the blinds with gram and remembering to straighten out the macrame pulls. Remember that year that Gram paid me to hang out of the windows and wash the outsides?
The cellar room with the cans of water from WWII.
The flood, the player piano, the pool table, the hours and hours spent watching Gramps make something in his workshop.
Swirlies.
The lathe.
Macrame plant hangers. The lamp in the den. Sleeping in the den. Wondering why there was a heater in the doorway between the den and gram & gramp's room?
Grandma's flocked wall paper.
The games and the puzzles. Remember the Land of the Lost puzzle? It's a circle. We'd put it together at least once a visit, usually on a Sunday after church.
Remember the slide shows? Where is that stuff, does it still work? That would be a fun way to spend a cold day.
DAV meetings and getting to play upstairs while the adults had their meeting and sneaking downstairs to eat sugar cubes.
Lipstick candy that magically came out of our ears.
Gram's "dirty" frogs.
The Christmas tree and Santa in his balloon. The Thanksgiving centerpiece that's probably 40 years old if a day. The piano and many a carol sung around it.
My name on a tile in the bathroom.
Remember the old floors with the light brown and dark brown squares? Playing the "only step on the dark square" game. How sad we were when gramps put in a new floor to surprise gram and we couldn't play that game anymore because they were white.
Grandma tapping her spoon on the edges of her "Club" pots and pans so many times they are etched.
Remember when the phone number was "NE1-5021"? The phone table in the hall.
Being tall enough, finally, to reach the light chain in the hallway.
Kugali, Pigs in a Blanket, Spaetzle, Grandma Mom's homemade bread, strawberry banana jello mold, cranberry relish, red cabbage...all of the love made into food to feed us at holidays, in times of joy, sorrow, and every occasion in between.
Graduating from the adult table.
The stories. Hawk Lady. Shaggy cows. The banana and the rollerskates. Grandpa messing with grandma all of the time.
Owassippe trips planned at the table. Crystal Lake trips planned there in January because we had to send in our application for a site.
Did you know that where the basement stairs are by the back door there used to be an "ice box"? There is a secret staircase in the hall closet that leads to the trap door upstairs because it used to be "just" an attic.
Painting the basement stairs "with" gramps. Trying not to get too much paint where it didn't belong.
The little door for the mail in the front. The doorbell chimes. The grandfather clock. The cuckoo clock and getting to pull the chains on a rare occasion.
Fighting with Jen over who gets to put out the celebration candles with the snuffer. No blowing! Hiding under the dining room table on the support beam making it into a hide-out. Eavesdropping on adult conversations.
Dance performances from the front hall, complete with music and scarves.
The hundreds of Easter, Graduation, Birthday, and family portraits taken on the front stairs.
The hydrangeas out front.
The lily of the valley on the side of the house.
The silver fence.
The park.
The neighbors.
Realizing that you have the same hands as grandma, and that your mom does, too. Realizing that you sit the same way as grandma, curl your toes the same way, and love watching grandpa fall asleep in his recliner with his blanket on him.
Watching spanish soap operas with gramps, just because.
The love. The fights. The running away from and running back to 5959 N. Newburg.
I know how I feel about it being someone else's house.
I hate it.
I wish it could stay in our family forever. I don't understand why it has to be sold. I hate it more every day because I think of a new and more poignant memory and it breaks my heart to know that I can never run "home" there anymore.
I hope that we get one last Christmas in the house before it's sold. So we can hear "To my Darling from Me" and drink spiked eggnog and grate fresh nutmeg over it. So we can gather one last time as a family and toast our lives in the house.
I love that house. It has a piece of all of us, that is how it lives.
Oh, I am sure that it will live on, it just won't be ours and that's what makes me so emotional and a little bit lost.
7 comments:
Not only has God given you a gift with words, but a memory like no other. I love your memory, because mine is so bad! I was born & raised in that house, and I haven't even scratched the surface of those memories. Thank you for putting yours down in writing. A few that I remembered while reading yours: Progressive Dinners with "the Group",going house to house for each course. Rolled Sandwich horsdeuvers (sp?). The story about Grandma standing on the kitchen counter, painting the cabinets & spilling the entire can of paint: O'Dad asking if she was OK & then telling her "Things could be worse" and going back upstairs! Canoe trips for the Explorer Scouts planned in the basement, measuring out dry foods and dividing up all the weight. Thanks again, honey. I hope and pray that we have one last Christmas there, also. I will take it very hard if we don't.
I hope you have one more Christmas, too, and I'd like to give you a Native American tradition for your final visit to 5959 N. Newburg.
To the Native Americans ("my people" as I like to refer to them,) land cannot be owned - it is simply a gift you keep for a time, and then pass on to another. When they leave a place, they visit each room with a bowl of water. They stop in every corner of every room, and sprinkle a bit of water in each corner.
The water signifies the emotion felt within the dwelling - the tears of joy, sorrow, and yes, the laughter so hard it brings you to tears. If you do this as a group, you can talk about your memories of the room.
It can take a long time. ;)
When you are finished, you take the remaining water with you outside. Sprinkle a little in your hair, to signify that you are taking the emotions with you. Then pour the rest into the soil.
I have done this each time I have left a home since I moved back from college. It brings me an immense sense of peace and belonging.
May it be a gift to you and your family.
That's so special.
I remembered some more.
Squeezing around the stairs to get to the basement to get soda under the stairs. The "secret" storage compartment outside where grandpa stored chairs and summer stuff.
Grandma & Grandpa going out to a Halloween costume party as matching clowns.
Old Spice when they were going out.
Grandpa's crazy "gift wraps" when he would make ornaments or some wacky packaging to give Gram a gift.
Playing with gram's shoes.
Dolling up for some occasion and checking it out in the hallway mirror.
All of the hidden and numerous things you find when you just look around and start to explore.
Of course it helps if you are under 4 feet tall. It makes the exploration more like an adventure.
This was very sweet.
I just hope that they are as happy when they move as they were in the house.
Remember when the Arizona Peterson's would come in and it would just be a weekend of celebration.
How about the California Grelck's, they are a fun bunch!
Uncle Joe's sense of humor that I can see is a Grelck trait because J is a student of the deadpan master.
Sliding down our butts on the stairs to Grandma Mom's.
Her spoons! Do you know that I used to spend hours and hours with her and we would take them down and wash them and put them back up and how many many many stories there were about them?
The puppies on the porch and who was in the "Doghouse" that week.
"Sis"
The kitchen talks.
Remember when Grandma got her new fridge? Boy was that a weird day!
The funny thing is that they have started selling them with the freezer on the bottom again.
Remember when Grandpa made the bench and mirror that were just like the originals in Lincoln's bedroom? I remember him staining them and wondering how he did that.
Grandma's nailpolish cabinet and the kitchen table manicure center.
Playing with Uncle Tom's GI Joe's.
The string art lamp.
The shutters in "Uncle Tom's room" because no matter what else that room becomes, it was always "Uncle Tom's Room".
The hall closet.
What do you need?
A kitchen towel? The hall closet.
Bandaid? The hall closet.
Liniment? The hall closet.
An ace bandage? The hall closet.
A bath towel? The hall closet.
Remember the spider plant that gram used to have hanging on the back porch?
Homemade Christmas ornaments with the beads.
The milkweed pod ornaments.
The balls made from recycled cards.
Stealing cookies out of the cookie jar with Grandpa when Gram went out to the store.
I remember asking to spend the night early so we could go with Grandpa to pick up Gram from work at CCH and hiding in the back seat of the brown station wagon and jumping out to surprise her as if she didn't know we were spending the night.
Chocolate fudge pop tarts - Gram always had them when we spent the night.
Gram and Gramps having a beer in the evening while watching their night
time soaps... wasn't it 'Knot's Landing?'
Being allowed to get 1 thing from the 'snack' cabinet above the microwave
before we left. (I never realized the similarity before, but I too have a
snack cabinet)
The black and white with touches of color wedding portraits of Gram and
Gramps and Uncle Joe and Aunt Millie
All the little figurines on the glass tray in Great Grandma Mom's bedroom
The Zenith TV and remote upstairs with like 4 buttons.
The pink lady head kleenex dispenser in the upstairs bathroom
Tetherball
Gram's drawer full of recycled ziplocks
I LOVE those portraits, too! Thanks for sharing your memories, Jen!
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