With the help of a class at Cornerstone, I've been learning to trust in my ability to process emotional things through creative writing. Meaning not just journaling or blog posts, but through writing stories. I wrote a piece involving my memory of my grandma's house and wanted to share it here.
Feel free to leave comments on any ways it could use improvement, or if you know my grandma and have been similarly blessed by the blue house (whether that is the pool, coffee on the porch, or just the joy of my grandma) leave a note and I'll make sure it gets to her. Thank you!
The Blue House
As
the summer transformed into fall and the hot days turned to crisp mornings filled
with warm sun, it waited. As the leaves changed color and fell to the ground,
the house stood beside the road. As the barren trees seemingly wept for life
because snow covered their branches and the shutters became coated in a thin
layer of ice, the blue house watched over the familiar golf course. Then when
the sun got hotter, the snow began to melt, the trees burst forth with new life
and the smell of freshly cut grass filled the air, the blue house opened. The porch
doors were unlocked and the woman inside readied herself for the flood of
visitors.
I
watched as all of this happened. I watched as the seasons changed. I watched as
my grandmother opened her home again and again to the neighborhood, to friends
and to family, to strangers. Over and over she served these people with the big
blue house. I was one of the blessed.
My
mother grew up in the robin’s egg home many years ago. When it came time to
start her own family she settled into the two-story white colonial just down
the road. Only one house separated my sisters and me from the always open arms of
our Grandma K. but, soon this will be different, the house will change hands. Her
field that was simply an addition to our own backyard will not be available for
our games of hide and seek. The kitchen and den that were just an extension of
our own kitchen will not allow for our search of a cup of sugar or a box of Club
crackers. Soon, my Grandma will leave and the once magical, blue house will be
empty—a shell of familial history.
*
I
can’t remember the first time I swam in the pool or napped in the cabana; my
mother tells me it began in infancy. My childhood days were filled with the
smell of chlorine, poolside snacks, and courageous dives off of the diving
board. There was not a single summer day, growing up on Oakleigh, that didn’t
involve waking up and looking out the second story window at my grandmother’s
pool. There was not a moment in those schoolless days where my younger sister
and I didn’t sit on our front step begging for permission to go swimming.
Everyday our hair got crisper and our tans deeper because of our love for the
blue house and the adventure it promised.
In
the beginning, we were able to walk across the Collin’s backyard. We could don
our bathing suits, grab a towel and skitter our bare feet through the dirt path
that was lined with ivy. But, in my tenth year the neighbors re-landscaped
forcing us to either sneak across their backyard or take the “long” way across all
three front yards. This didn’t last long; as the neighbor boys got older we
cared less about making our journey inconspicuously and more about getting to
the pool as quickly as possible, with as many friends in tow as our parents
would allow. As soon as permission was granted we would run over to the house
and open the white gate to our heaven-on-earth.
First,
we had the challenging task of uncovering the pool. Using all of our strength,
we cranked the cover’s wheel, revealing the crystal water. As the cover wheeled
back, we hopped from one foot to the next to keep the hot, red brick from
searing the bottoms of our feet. Once we exposed the deep end of the pool, I
would race my sisters or friends into the refreshing water. Once we were in,
nothing could get us out of the water unless it was the promise of food. More
often than not, our grandma would come out with her tray of fruit and crackers,
to fill our bellies, and the green glass pitcher of lemon water to quench our
thirst. Satisfied, we would dive in for another three hours spent in the
swimming pool. Often our days ended with the ringing of the dinner bell from
our house. If we were lucky, dessert came in the form of a night swim. My
grandma would turn on the pool light, making the deep water glow, allowing us
to splash in the company of fireflies. I cherished time spent at the house, the
comfort of my grandmother’s smell. I would leave feeling the best kind of
exhausted, smelling of chlorine and sunshine, freshly laundered sheets and
flowers.
As
I got older, the magic never dissipated. Granted, I spent less time in the
water and more time lying beside the pool with various friends, but the feeling
of peace that resonated so deeply in the blue house never left. I was growing and changing, but the house
remained constant. The woman inside never failed to make me feel remembered.
Just as I grew and changed, so my grandmother
got older. Recently an ALS[1]
diagnosis has ravaged her body and left her shoulders useless. As I grow and
become more of myself, she grows and loses some of herself. So she’s moving.
She’s leaving behind all of her comforts and all her possessions. She’s forsaking
all the memories of her husband and years spent child-rearing to move in with
her daughters. The idea of this house being empty, the pool drained, and the
woman inside gone is like the first time I swam without floatees. I knew I could
kick my legs and stay afloat; I had done it before. But now the physical sense
of safety that insured my head would stay above water had vanished. Though my
dad was only a few feet away from me, I still had to make a choice. Without the
floatees the pool seemed so much bigger, the world seemed that much scarier. I
remember swimming into my dad’s arms, again and again until I wasn’t swimming
into his arms, but to the other side of the pool and then I was racing and
winning medals on my high school swim team. The pool no longer seemed scary but
conquerable. I understood the way the water moved and resisted. I understood
where I should take my last breath to make it through a flip turn and
streamline. The pool wasn’t scary; it was familiar and normal. In the same way
swimming without floatees makes the world scarier, the blue house without my
grandmother, sitting on the porch drinking her morning coffee, makes the world
bigger; it makes it unbeatable.
It
isn’t the idea of her leaving the house to move in with family that is the most
troubling, but the idea of her leaving this world altogether. Through every
season, physical and emotional, that house has been a refuge for every sister,
aunt and uncle, cousin, or friend who needed a place to warm their feet on a
freshly stoked fire or to nap on the softest carpet known to man. When our
comfort or familiarity is threatened our reaction is to cling even more tightly
to that thing we love; to hang on because the world would be unbearable without
it. However, the truth is the thing we love so deeply has shaped us, probably
molded us to be a better version of ourselves. The thing we love so profoundly
will exist eternally. For what we love is love itself and that will never be
wiped from memory. Although, in a few weeks, that house will be emptied of all
that gave it life and character, I can pass by believing that I am better for
having known it, I am better for having a woman to look up to and to treasure.
I am better for having experienced that selfless kind of love.
[1]
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or Lou Gherig’s Disease is a progressive
neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal
cord eliminating muscle function.
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