Meme’s house

Today our family had quite an overwhelming moment.  Let me tell you about it. 

My mom was born to a teenage mother.  A 16 year old teenage mother to be exact.  My grandmother married and built a house right next to my great-grandmother.  My grandparents divorced but my grandfather remained in the house beside my great-grandmother with his new wife.  Through all this and I’m not sure who was living where all the time but what I do know is my mother grew up with my great-grandmother and great-grandfather.  They were pretty much who raised her although my grandfather was always next door and she did and does still call him Daddy.  It was all a weird situation yet it seemed to work.  Obviously Mom turned out ok.

My parents got married 6 days after my mom graduated high school.  They moved right across the border from a small town in PA where my Mom grew up to a town in MD where my dad grew up.  They stayed there until I was 3 when my family moved South from Maryland.  Since then, it’s only been the four of us down here (well, there since I’m up here at the moment).  I wasn’t one of the lucky ones that got to spend afternoons at Grandma’s or got Grandma as a Friday night babysitter.  No, I got to see my extended family twice a year.  One week in the summer and one at Christmas.  Somehow I still felt pretty close to my family and don’t harbor any resentment about it in the least.  I am very, very thankful my parents moved us down South, or at least out of the town we were from.

In any case, those two weeks a year we stayed was at my great-grandmother’s house.  It was built by my great-grandfather in 1946.  By the time I came around, my great-grandfather had passed so it was just her there.  Mom and Dad slept in one of the spare bedrooms upstairs, my uncle who is much younger than my mom still lived with Meme (my great-grandmother) and stayed in the other bedroom upstairs, Heather would sleep on the couch and I would sleep with Meme.  She always said I was easy to sleep with since I never moved while I slept.

I remember lots and lots of things about Meme and that house.

In the kitchen, I remember her toasting us pop-tarts or frying an egg or ice cream with chocolate syrup and milk in a bowl.  I remember her wiping down the table after we ate.  I remember the cabinet above the stove and her getting glasses from there.  Or I remember her washing dishes, looking out the window to my grandfather’s house.  I remmeber the red and white checkered tile and the rotary phone and the story of how my mom broke her tooth roller skating on that floor.

In her room, I remember how she always had a Tupperware cup of water beside her bed.  And her glow in the dark white plastic square clock.  I remember lying so still at night so I could her her breathing to make sure she was still alive (seriously).  I remember waking up and her picking out a house coat/dress to wear for the day.  I remember lying on that bed with my cousin and reading Teen and Bop magazines.

In the living room I remember watching MTV with my cousin.  I remember lying on the couch with my uncle watching tv with everyone.  I remember Meme putting me on her lap and rocking me telling me how big I was getting.

Upstairs I remember also hanging out with my cousin but up there we found my uncle’s stash of girly magazines and trying to figure out what was what.  We were so young.

In the basement I remember Meme doing the laundry and I remember all her canned foods and the old garage where my uncle had his girly posters on the wall. 

Outside I remember the old white metal swingset and the swing on the front porch.  I remember dancing in the driveway with my cousin waving at passerbys.  I remember when it snowed 3 feet and we sled down the hill in the back yard.

Well, you understand that’s not nearly all of my memories.  But I do have a lot.  Meme passed the September after I turned 16.  She had met Scott for the first time during our one week summer stay.  I remember her comment to Mom was I was too young for all that.

After Meme passed, the family emptied the house and we stayed at hotels for a few trips.  My aunt eventually ended buying Meme’s house and fixing it up.  It wasn’t a total renovation but it was really nice.  I think we may have stayed there once or twice.  They ended up moving away and Mom and Dad ended up buying the house we’re staying in now as their vacation house and Meme’s house was sold to another person we didn’t know.

Today, we went to my grandfather’s house to visit him.  He’s still in the same house that sits right beside Meme’s.  The house is really nice from the outside.  She cut some trees down and planted other trees and flowers.  She paved the driveway.  My aunt had had the house resided.  You could tell the house had been cared for.  My grandfather mentioned that we go over and have a look through the house.  So we did.

We knocked and rang the door bell at the front to no avail.  I think we were all disappointed, so we walked around back just to see everything she had done.  While we were back there, an older lady, maybe in her 60s called out to us.  She knew who we were and invited us in.  I was thrilled.

But I wasn’t prepared for walking in the back door into the kitchen.

I think I was one of the first ones in and it almost took my breath away. I remember my mouth opening and nothing coming out.  She had totally renovated the kitchen.  The white cabinets were gone.  The red and white tile was gone.  Yet it wasn’t a sadness that brought my sister and I to tears.  As I walked into each room and saw how gorgeous the renovations were, I just knew Meme would be so proud.  Her house was just so pretty.  Someone had cared enough about it to make it better. 

And in every room, all the memories came flooding back in a way it hadn’t when my aunt owned the house.  I just stood in her old bedroom that was now a laundry room and felt myself lying in her bed listening to her breathing.  When I walked in the living room, I felt her holding me in her rocking chair.  Somehow this lovely woman had captured Meme in what she had done.  I knew this woman no different than Eve and yet her house felt like home.

I’m not exactly sure how Heaven works but I know she’s been there for 13 years now yet somehow I know she was there today.