their house

I move around all the time, but my grandparents knew how to stay in one place. 60 years in their home, one of my favourite places in the world. Places become important because of what inhabits those spaces. Love, care, safety, peace, beauty. Simple and enduring feelings, made important by the two of them.

Even now, I can close my eyes and walk through it, as if I’m there.

The wall of family photos in the front room, laid out like we were all famous, that greeted everyone who arrived. The big tree that hung over the deck, perfect for little cousins to climb. The cupboard under the stairs, perfect for little cousins to hide in. The permanently filled cookie jar, always those ones with the jelly in the middle. Denman mugs, filled with tea. Upstairs, Granny’s sewing room, the glass door at the end of the hallway leading out to the roof, the little plaques for each bedroom. I remember marvelling as a little girl at the fact that my own mother lived here when she was my age. When you’re young those kinds of things are hard to make sense of. When you’re young, there is no past. Now, somedays, days like today, it feels like there is more past than anything else.

Weddings happened here, and reunions, and anniversaries, birthdays, and Easters, and Christmas, sleepovers. I remember them vaguely. But the things that feel strongest are the sharp details of my senses, constant no matter the season or event. The creak of the stairs. The temperature of the bathroom next to the front door. The feel of the green shag carpet under my feet and fingers. The wobble of the 3 legged wooden dining chairs. The sound and smell of every single room.

Even now, I can close my eyes and be in the backseat of the car, watching the two of them waving goodbye in the driveway, telling us to drive home safe.

Then at some point, just Gramps, still waving, leaning on his cane, drive safe.

and then now, empty house. I walk around it in my mind, as if I could enter the kitchen again and see her in the kitchen, her head thrown back in laughter. As if I could look out the dining room window and see him puttering around in the garden.

Childhood slips away quietly, a thousand times, in a thousand ways.

I close my eyes again.

Drive safe.