As I've found through the years, potentially intense situations are more manageable when I preemptively talk about them, to perhaps give a little shape to what lies ahead rather than have it remain a vague amorphous blob on the horizon. I once took a painting class and, much like the effort of painting silhouettes to guide what will be filled in, there are a few silhouettes for this weekend to be filled in in time.
This weekend, Jilly and I will help our dad move from the family home--the only home we and our siblings have known. To be expected, I know we will at least go through rooms and move to storage items we'd like to preserve either to keep or to hold for a future decision. We'll move more items to a space now defined as succinctly in text as its square footage--"dad's condo"--and we'll experience the place where we grew up for potentially the last time depending on the market. All of this is something any adult would experience in time. People go through this all the time, memories are lasting regardless of where you are, they say. Yes, this is true. However, those that say that may not know...
That basketball hoop is where Jill and I would beat Craig handedly in a game of ball and then would be unceremoniously helicopter-swung into the bushes like ragdolls. Those flowers and/or weeds in the flower bed were dutifully planted by our mom with the help of the girls. The round flower bed raises herbs, Diane's very own. That tree in the front is where our mom broke her leg and we'd nurse her back, washing her hair in the kitchen. That other tree in the front is the one Craig playfully hung from upside down years before he died. He would hem and haw as to whether to use that as an on-line dating picture. I remember telling him he'd be a moron if he didn't. That gutter is the one he'd clean over thanksgiving during one of our typical family traditions (yard work), and the one he'd help hang a welcome home sign on when our mom was finally discharged from inpatient physical therapy following her brain surgery.
That corner in the foyer is where Craig hit his head when our Dad was playing chase; that space in the back is where we'd hold our fancy family dinners and the nook is where our mom would serenade with Fur Elise on an unassuming piano or where Craig played, often with his harmonica. That hallway holds the pitter patter sounds of four young children anxiously awaiting a slumbering Santa and his wife to wake up, and the murmurs of stealthy hide and seek/secret spy games. That room on the right now no longer restricted but equally revered is one we couldn’t go into until Craig left for law school. His room was just that—his. While he did not care for our presence in his room, I remember taking note and loving his presence in ours. And, that room in the far back to the left still somehow smells of our mom though she has long since passed. With just the turn of a knob, she still sits on the edge of the bed under a pale yellow light and smooths mentholatum on her lips before heading to bed.
Each room, contour, blemish, artifact and point of erosion is a memory. These “easy buttons” are the painted silhouettes that so easily give form to the memory to come--a portal to the memory. Those who have the gift of future tense and the ability to continue making memories may not appreciate how precious, coveted, and necessary these "easy buttons" are when the ability to create is finite. When the moment approaches and when the easy buttons are no longer accessible, so begins a new milestone, a new process of grief, and a new period of letting go leaving memory alone, in this sense, to create shape. There are other tools and means for connecting with our mom and brother, sure, but perhaps none as real, palpable, and majestic as home.
~E
