Always starting to enter from the back side door.
Opening the metal screen door.
And skipping every other step
Up to the converted sun porch.
Take a left to the kitchen.
Where I get some saltines out of the metal canister.
Remembering cutting my finger badly behind the fridge. Who knows why my little fingers were back there.
The gray and stainless steel kitchen table.
The sink where many children took baths.
There was the door to your room, the bathroom, and the hall living room from the kitchen.
Your room was sweet. It was my mom’s when she was a child.
The bathroom connected to many rooms. To the room where you and grandpa used to sleep. It used to be where your two boys slept too.
That room was the biggest. I remember sleeping in there with the fan on smelling the humidity of summer. Looking at books my mom used to read. Some of real life like monkeys on the cover.
The mirrored dresser with a stool and a pineapple lamp. That pineapple lamp is with me now. With the constant need to super glue the amber beads upon it. It’s in a box in Oregon.
The living room with the secretariat, the upholstered rocking chair, the glass topped wooden table. The record collection and record player.
All those are elsewhere now. I gave the rocking chair to my postpartum doula. The table sold to an antique shop. The record collection now sold or donated…or maybe some my mom still has. The record player we kept trying to fix but no one had the needle for it.
The orange couch with one arm I had through my 20s. A flowered sofa that I don’t know where it went. On the mantel was a 50th anniversary gift to you from the kids. A little room with a glass top on it.
The grandfather clock. My mom found a note upon it after you died that wrote that it was for her, “when I’m no longer needed.” My mom still has that clock. My daughter loves clocks because of that clock and points out “ghi-ga” every time she sees one. It means tick tock.
Winding back into a hallway and dining nook. Where the hand blown glass my mom brought back to you from Paris when she was 16 resided.
On the small table there were always placed candles or salt and pepper shakers for the holiday. I remember turkeys.
Back through the kitchen…take a right down the stairs and to the basement where a treasure trove of memories reside. I spent a lot of time there. As a child I would always seek out the basement and attic of houses. Something secret. Something quiet. A place to stare off. A place to peer in.
When entering the basement on your right was the study. A typewriter from what I’m guessing would’ve been the 40s. A red glass vase full of coins. Quaker oatmeal containers full of native arrowheads found on the farm.
In the main basement area was the shower. It was kind of in the middle of everything, but it worked and had hot water. There was memorabilia of decades past including a cardboard crocodile from my mom’s prom. Around the corner were more dressers with other things. I can’t remember as much of what was in them now.
Near the front of the basement was grandpa’s tools. Small drawers.
When you leave the basement you can take a right…
And find yourself on the concrete patio with the smell of spearmint. Walk toward the backyard down the concrete path with the laundry drying. The path ends where the old white shed and pear tree are. Memories of Sugar, my mom’s dog seem to creep in. Also, a memory of my mom doing a back handspring in the grass when I was a child. Me, with awe and disbelief while I watched her. She may have been 40.
Meander to the other side of the yard, where the huge rose bush grows. Light pink flowers with the best perfume. My dad over the years taking a piece and replanting it at each home that we lived. It grows in Oregon today.
The garage didn’t stand out to me. Except for the blue and white toddler carriage that my mom and I used.
There’s more. Much more. What I have with me today are your wedding ring, your scarf that still smells like you, and a costume diamond snowflake pendant. After recounting all of that I’m beginning to feel sleepy. I love you grandma. Night night.
