The house that built us

(Thanks, friends, for indulging me in a personal blog post this Christmas. May you find all is calm and peace during this most holy time of year!)

*******

The house was the body.

The backdrop where life laughed and bled, and the spirits of dad and mom sped upward to God. We moved there when I was 15, on Halloween.

Dad worked hard to get us there, long hours of sweat and deadlines, and in 1965 he scraped together the $17,000 to buy the three-story structure that would fill with nine children. Mom wanted a big yard for her children to play in and to plant her trees and flowers.

West Maple Avenue. The street flanked with thick-trunked maples, a historic library, a hotel where George Washington rested from battle.

Mom dug earth and seeded it with trees and bushes that grew to towering heights. My siblings played tag, baseball, molded snow forts in the deep white of winter.

Dad worked long hours, but we knew when he was home, honking the car horn long and hard in the driveway.

*******

The kitchen was the heart.

There, we shared coffee and communion of spirit, the air heavy with the fragrance of mom’s homemade soups and fresh-baked cornbread. At times, dad would stand at the stove, flipping flour tortillas in the cast-iron skillet, tearing off pieces and dipping them into the beans mom had made. 

Mom and dad were the soul of the house.

With them, we aged and grew, celebrating Thanksgivings, Christmases, birthdays, tables pushed together, shoulder-to-shoulder, boisterous laughter bouncing off the walls.

******

Years melted into each other. Sixty years. We aged. Moved away. Then a growing silence.

Dad became ill and died. Mom died. My siblings and I decided we had to sell the house on West Maple.

We gave ourselves one year, plowing through 60 years of our parents’ lives — Avon collectibles and report cards mom had saved and the countless cassette tapes of the inspirational talks dad had given.

We sold the house in April. Six months later, my brother, who had helped care for mom and dad, died.

When I drove out the driveway for the last time, a surge of sorrow swallowed me whole. How many times had I driven here for celebrations and sadness?

And even though I had moved away years ago, it was still home, still the center of our family, the place where, as Robert Frost wrote, they had to take me in.

*******

This Christmas will be the first without that house.

We are spread out across the country now, but my heart still goes in memory to the tree in the corner of the living room, the twinkling ceramic Christmas village on the mantel, of my mother opening the back door and welcoming me with a warm hug.

Of dad, sometimes waiting at the end of the long driveway in the cold for family to arrive.

Of my brother, who is with God now, always buying a basket of goodies for the family.

Today the house has new owners, but its spirit still settles on my heart, a bittersweet reminder that moments with those we love are precious. To cherish them. To be in the present with all the anguish, nonsense, sadness and yes, joy that Christmas brings.

For this is life. This is the mystery of humanity. The mystery and love of the incarnation.