A Chapter Closes

When I was small, that hill seemed huge. Riding my bike or the big wheel down it was exciting, daring and thrilling like a roller coaster ride. The basketball hoop seemed as tall as a building. I would never be able to throw a ball that high, but it was fun to “play basketball” with my aunt and dad. The finished basement was a grand play area, the closets full of old things were scary, the floor in my uncles’ old room creaked, Kermit was like a troll living downstairs, the flowers on the porch where we wiled away long hours grew 365 days a year, the toys in the closet were the best, the upright piano was as grand as a baby grand and the house smelled like…well, Grandma’s house. One of the best places in the world.

We say in our lives when something comes to an end that a chapter has closed. But, sometimes, the end is more than a mere chapter. Sometimes a whole book closes. A favorite story we hoped would never end, no matter how sad or frustrating some of the chapters were. A book we assumed would always be on our shelf, even if we had to shake the dust off it the next time we picked it up. A tale we would share with our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. A part of our history. A part of their history. And then it’s gone.

My grandmother Ogilvie passed away nearly a year ago now, October 17. When Ed, Emry and I went down to Lewisburg, Tennessee for the funeral it was the first time I had been “home” in 13 years. I hadn’t intended for so many years to pass, but my grandmother and I had a…well, complicated relationship and the easiest way to handle it seemed to be simply staying away. Maybe it was fear. Maybe it was pride. Probably both and lots more. Looking back now, whatever it was probably wasn’t really worth it, but that’s neither here nor there now. Like lots of things in life. Despite what finally brought me back to Lewisburg, it was good to be home.

For Lewisburg is home in a thousand different ways. I wasn’t born there. I only lived there for 3 years and 9 months from the ages of 5 to 8. Now with Grandma’s death, I don’t even really have a reason to go back. But my roots are there. My sister’s grave. Memories. Pieces that make me me. Things that make a place home.

Last month, the family sold my grandma’s house. Strangely, the loss of that house – that home – seems harder to bear that the loss of my grandma. Perhaps that’s part of grief, but in so many ways that house was Grandma. Even when we were there a year ago, I just expected Grandma to be somewhere when I turned a corner: at the piano playing her songs by ear, baking cornbread in the small kitchen, sipping tea on the best front porch in the whole entire world, stepping out of the bathroom that always had the fuzziest bath mats. Of course she wasn’t…but she was.  The fact that she was gone had not yet set in. Now it has.

My grandfather (whom I never met) built that house for my grandmother in 1961. It’s unique, a rectangular brick home built into a hill, nothing fancy about it. The basement is open to the driveway that curves around the house. There is one garage stall and the rest of the basement was used for her Kindergarten. Upstairs is where my mom, two uncles and aunt grew up in a simple three-bedroom, 1 ¾ baths, den, small kitchen and parlor/dining room. I guess the door into the parlor is the front door, but we never used it. We all came in up the cement steps that led to the porch we have all spent HOURS on and into the kitchen. Lewisburg is a small town. Grandma never locked her doors. She kept her silver under the couch.

My dad picked up my mom for dates there. I first visited there when I was seven or eight months old. I spent many Christmases there, my aunt trying to perfect my grandma’s oyster casserole recipe that died with her and Grandma plunking away at the piano while we kids sang and danced. I hunted Easter eggs all over the lawn, Grandma dressed as the Easter bunny. I rode bikes in the drive, played Wiffle ball on the lawn and chased my cousins all over the place. We played Round Robin on the warped Ping-Pong table, spun around the poles that held the house above the basement, engaged in some extremely competitive rounds of Spoons and not one of us died or seriously injured ourselves on that precarious staircase. There were the years Kermit lived in the basement. (Grandma’s second husband whom she married not long before I was born and divorced in 1991, but I didn’t know that as a child – I just thought he lived in the basement.) When my aunt was in college, her dog Jeremy was always around. We’d run over and visit with Mrs. Little or Mrs. Cochran across the backyard or they’d come over to visit with us. In the coat closet was the frog, old puzzles and the Little People schoolhouse to play with. Trick-or-treating in the neighborhood, walks down to the creek, liters of Sun Drop on the kitchen counter. So many memories…

I know I’m not the only one who must have cried when the house sold. My parents, my aunts and uncles, my siblings, my cousins…so many pieces of our lives were given to us in that home. And now it’s not ours.

It’s not a chapter that has closed – it’s a book. One I wish had never ended.