Hey Ya’ll!
This isn’t really an update on renovations, but more so a story about the joys of doing so. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been trying to decide what I want to do for flooring options (tile in the bathrooms, colors, styles…but mainly price [you all know I’m cheap]). During the process of measuring the floors tonight, I did a little more cleaning out of my guest bathroom closet.
After my grandmother had the house to herself, she moved out of the master bedroom into one of the kid’s vacant rooms and used the guest bathroom. So all of her cosmetics and everyday items were stashed away in this closet. Any normal person would simply take his or her arm and rake everything into a garbage bag. Well, I’m not your normal person. It’s simply amazing what a closet can hold. It holds more than just stuff – it holds a lifetime of memories. With each bottle of perfume and each tin of powder comes an overwhelming reminder of the way my grandmother smelled. Each tube of lipstick and each shade of blush is a subtle hint of the full color of life that she lived. I found two boxes of sheet music crammed in the bottom of the closet – hidden for the past twenty years. I sat in the floor, my knees pulled against my chest, and I could hear her piano in the other room.
But perhaps the greatest treasure I found was an old box of loose papers. These are papers that wouldn’t mean a thing to anyone else but my grandmother. It was a collection of history of her children. I found handwriting lessons my aunt and uncle completed when they were in the first and second grades. With each piece was my grandmother’s handwriting across the top telling the date and the little hand that wrote it. I found handmade Christmas cards, pictures drawn by her children, and ribbons that were worn in my mother’s hair. And then I found the note that spoke to my heart. I found a note written by my mother when she was just fifteen years old. It was folded four times and ‘To Daddy’ was written on the outside. As I opened the crisped paper, it revealed a note in which my mother was begging her father – my grandfather – to let her go out with a boy. What’s more to know is that she was interested in a boy before my dad. As a youth involved so much in his own life (and typically fully believing that his parents’ lives revolve only around him), one tends to forget that his parents had a life before he existed. But it spoke to me. My mom has a history…she has loved and she has lost. She was a teenager once who lived through puppy love, and had friends that could date when she couldn’t. She lived a life – and a grand one. She negotiated and begged – offering to get up on Saturday mornings to clean house and only watch T.V. when my grandfather told her she could – all in exchange for one date. She closed by telling him she was older than he thought and she wasn’t so little anymore. (I hope I don't embarrass my mother too much by telling this - it was too charming to me not to share).
I think this is one final gift from my grandmother – a chance to live a past I never got to see – a chance to see my family grow up; maybe not with my own eyes, but with pieces of their history. There is a memory attached to everything, and each one is worth hearing and worth being told. They may not mean anything to anyone else, but they mean everything to me. I guess the best part is I didn’t just buy a house, I bought a home.
Warm Southern Days,
Russ
