She lived here when I was born. We lived nearby until I was eight. My childhood included playing in this backyard with the garden hose, feeding the neighbor's horses carrots and apples through the fence that abutted the property line, being bathed in the sink in the utility room, happily playing with a pail of water and a rag on the back patio for hours, eating the perfect grilled cheese sandwiches and shoestring potato chips for lunch, collecting acorns from the driveway, stealing slices of coffee cake and danish that were always under the covered glass cake platter, reading the funny pages from the newspaper while Grandmom read the headlines as we munched on buttered toast, playing with paper dolls and Legos at the kitchen table, listening to my mom and Grandmom talk for hours, coming over on Friday nights to watch Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. Grandmom bustled around the house whenever I was here, moving down hallways and upstairs and back down again, maintaining her home in the style that suited her. And then when she was ready for a rest, she would kick off her house shoes and sit down on the sofa with her feet tucked up behind her and grab something to read or watch the birds flutter in the bird bath in the back yard. Evenings were always punctuated by the soundtrack of Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy on the living room TV and that telltale sound of someone lifting the lid off the glass candy dish filled with M&Ms.
Holidays were always a lively affair, headquartered in this home. My mom's family would even fly in from Texas and join in the fun sometimes. There was always so much food and so much laughter, pool balls clanking and someone yelling "Rack 'em up!" or "Use a little English!" from the pool room, someone seated at the organ playing from the sheet music lying nearby. Family traditions and practical jokes and old stories rehashed and laughed over like new. I often got the privilege of ringing the dinner bell that is mounted on the dining room wall to call everyone to the table for the holiday meal. The table was always dressed to the nines with lace tablecloths and candles, fine china and silver and food warming in dishes that had been prepared with love and care. Those dinners were the hallmark of my childhood holiday experience, always crowned with the return of the family to the table for dessert and coffee after the dinner dishes were washed -- my hot chocolate always tasted better in that fine china cup. Finally heading home on those holiday nights, the last thing I always saw from my backseat window as we drove away from the house was the light glowing in the dining room window, the chandelier shining as the centerpiece of the room. It always filled me with a sense of wellbeing and affection.
Our move to Kentucky when I was eight ushered in a decade of near-constant moving for me and my parents. Every two or three years we moved to a new city and a new house. In the midst of all that change, Grandmom and PopPop's house remained constant. I loved to return here, to drive up into the long driveway shaded by towering old trees, to take in the lush lawn edged by elephant grass, to see the garage door up and PopPop or Grandmom moving in and out of the house through the utility room. In middle and high school I always came in and found a snack in the pantry and helped myself to a Coke from the mini fridge. I learned Grandmom's technique for making the perfect grilled cheese. I brought my boyfriends over and my friends over. I played the songs I wrote on piano on the old organ, experimenting with sounds and settings for hours. I learned to shoot pool. I learned about my family history. I spent hours pouring over the family photo albums, enjoying the glimpse of my Grandmom in her heyday of throwing parties and entertaining and seeing my dad and his brothers when they were young. I loved to hear stories about my grandparents' growing-up years in New Jersey and asked Grandmom a million questions that probably pestered her to no end.
I got a car my senior year of high school and this became my official pit stop between Tampa and Fort Pierce when I was traveling to visit my parents. PopPop gave me a lesson on washing and waxing a vehicle in the driveway. I painstakingly wrote down Grandmom's recipes for meatballs, meatloaf, lasagna, baked ziti. I went to college in Orlando and dated a guy in Lakeland. I stayed here when I visited him and remember lying awake at night in the pink room upstairs, listening to the crickets outside and daydreaming about my future when it was all laid out before me like some fantastic adventure just waiting on the other side of college graduation.
There was a hurricane my sophomore year of college that came right up I-4 and I knew Grandmom and PopPop were in the line of fire. When I couldn't reach them by phone, I drove to Valrico from Orlando and talked my way past a police barricade to get to their house. When I arrived, I saw debris all over the yard and learned there was no power in the house. We picked up tree branches all afternoon and then came in the dark house and played poker by candlelight. It was a great day. Another time I was spending the night and the mini fridge caught on fire. I filled up the cake platter lid with water from the kitchen because it was the quickest thing I could find resembling a bucket and rushed it to PopPop to put out the fire. Then I mourned the loss of that mini fridge that always held a nice, cold stash of soda.
The last boy I brought here was Joshua. It was my last Thanksgiving in college. We weren't dating but Josh's family had moved to Asheville and he didn't have anywhere to go, and I had a crush on him so I invited him to Thanskgiving dinner with my family. Grandmom really liked him. The first and only guy she really gave her approval to. After dinner was over, Joshua and I sat in the formal living room and sang Christmas carols. Josh thought it was fun that PopPop put lotto tickets under everyone's dinner plate. I'm so glad Josh got that experience.
After I moved to Asheville, I didn't get to return here much, and Grandmom's health declined. Finally she passed away in 2013. I remember the first time I came back to the house after her funeral... It was so painfully bereft of her presence. It was saying goodbye all over again. I expected her to be sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of Pepsi and a snack, or to walk through the short hallway from her master bedroom with an armful of laundry. But she was gone. And the place wasn't the same without her and I mourned.
Earlier this week I was in Brandon with the kids for a play date, and at the end of the day I picked up some dinner and brought it over to eat with my PopPop. We ate in the dining room-- Aidan, PopPop and I sitting at the table and Maddie playing on the floor. Aidan's childish exuberance lit up the room during the meal. Maddie started to go down the step into the formal living room head-first until I showed her how to go down backwards, just like my Grandmom taught me 29 years ago. My kids laughter filled up the rooms of the house and I swear I felt my Grandmom's presence again, radiating joy that her great-grandchildren brought such life into her house.
Tomorrow morning before I pull out of the driveway for the final time, I'm going to take some photos of my kids around the house. There's something in me that needs to do it-- to not only make memories in my mind but to create photographs for when my mind forgets. This is a hard goodbye. I feel like I'm saying goodbye to my Grandmom yet again, and also saying goodbye to a gigantic piece of my childhood-- the place that turned out to be the most permanent "home" for my family in my young life. There are so many memories here... I feel like it's that Miranda Lambert song, The House That Built Me. Cheesy, but true. I'm thankful that my kids got to be in this place, though. I can feel Grandmom smiling down on me.
There's no poetic way for me to end this, just a run-on of memories and a melancholy that's lingering. So much to take with me from the time I have been able to spend here over the past almost-30 years. And I will take it with me, and let it live on through me.
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