July 30, 2014
When I was first restoring this house it was full of small
kids and life was a whirlwind.
I was a school teacher by day, sold real estate evenings and
weekends, was president of a local not-for-profit, had a weekly column in the
local paper, was assistant coach of one of the kid’s basketball teams, and was
editing and trying to publish a book.
And, yeah, I was restoring this house and was father to
small children. Children with soccer, basketball and baseball games, with Cub Scout
& Brownie meetings and science
projects and papers they forgot to start writing until the night before they
were due.
Each morning at 6:00 I was shot out of a cannon and I ran as
fast as I could all day until I dove back into bed. In the morning, the alarm
clock lit the cannon fuse again.
During this time, my father, who wasn’t very good at
commiserating or sharing emotionally expressive thoughts said, “You remind me
of myself when I was your age. I had every unpaid job in town.” Unfortunately I
have inherited my father’s habit of offering solace that also sounds like an
insult.
My older workaholic sister, Jama shared with me something our dad told her, “We make our own hell.
Nobody does it to us.” Our dad told her that.
Once during those years my sister Cindy and her husband Jeff
visited from Florida. We were up late – my ex-wife and Cindy on the patio
talking while Jeff and I played endless games of H.O.R.S.E and drank beer in
the driveway. A child came out in their sleeper suit, awoken by the relentless
thump of the basketball. Jeff, who also wasn’t very good at sharing emotionally
expressive thoughts, paused mid shot, looked past the ball toward the house and
yard, wife and child and said, “You’re a lucky man. You’ve made a really good
life.”
Yes I did. And I still do. I’m a very fortunate person.
Though I long-ago freed myself of that manic work schedule,
this year I’ve found myself back at a workaholic work day at the very time the
children are grown and gone. It should be easier. But even that complaint is a
fortunate man’s observation: I’m making good money and publishing a book.
Never the less, I’m exhausted, it is Wednesday and I need a
nap.
It is over three years now since I first packed my bags and
left this house, 18 months since I kept the house in the divorce, a year since all
the boys left in a single autumn and their sister went off to college and nine
months since a single soul-numbing weekend in which my brother-in-law, Jeff
took his own life on a Friday night and my father died on Sunday. This year has
been the busiest of my twenty years of real estate. I have worked insane hours.
The relaunch of a book I wrote will take place this coming weekend. In a couple
days my house will fill with guests and I will be the center of attention and
responsibility.
Lunch at the coffee shop with Peggy and Kelli is done and I
desperately need that nap. I drive home and climb the stairs.
Though it’s the middle of the day, I make my rounds. I walk
the L-shaped hall and look into each bedroom. I started this when my kids were
babies, checking to make sure they were breathing. Then, as they grew I
continued my rounds each night before bed to make sure they were asleep or just
to watch them a-snooze and think about the age they were and what that meant at
the moment. But now each bed is empty. I’ve grown used to this. I’ve cleaned
them and prepared them for my weekend guests. The kids are all gone and I am
here in the house alone.
Walking to my bedroom I have the faint sense of being left
behind, as if everyone else went somewhere and I was the last one left in the
world we all once shared together. They, and their mother, all gone. But
there’s no real emotional content behind that thought. It’s just a thought. I
chose this as my way forward and I’m at peace with it. The kids left because
they grew up and started their own lives. All is as it should be.
The sun is pouring through the south-facing windows. I lay
down and Gracie curls in behind my knees, purring. I quickly fall into a deep
sleep.
An hour later I struggle to wake from a heavy, drug-like
sleep. An unseasonably cool July breeze billows the shades out from the window
sashes. I’m aware of the sound of a girl giggling and boyish hearty laughter
coming over the porch roof and through my bedroom window. I know those voices!
It’s the ghosts of my children playing in the side yard. They are running from
the sidewalk to the garage, laughing as they go, the joyous sound recedes from
my bedroom, echoes hard and bright through the stair landing window, and comes
again, this time muffled, from Cal’s back bedroom window down the hall. I think
I smell food. Pot pies in the oven downstairs? We’ll eat dinner around the
kitchen table soon!
No. That’s wrong. It’s not the sound of my children’s
ghosts. It’s their echoes – echoes from ten or fifteen years ago that got
stuck in the eves of the roof and the foundation vents. The cool breeze has
blown them free to be heard again.
But no. Wait! It’s not that at all. It’s the neighbor
children playing in the side yard. That’s what it is. Playing in the same place
where my children played. Playing the same sorts of games.
As I work my way through this from deep sleep to full
waking, I am not sad. I have few regrets. Cal is in Japan. Jack and Sean are in
Denver. Sally is visiting my sister, Jama in LA. Their mother lives across town
with another man and I am here in our old place. I share this room with another
woman. It is all as it should be. We are all in our own good places, places we
chose, and on good terms with one other.
This summer, it seems we have all arrived where we should
be.
No comments:
Post a Comment