A Room with a View

One of my favorite photos of Mama and Daddy the Fall after we had all just moved in together. They are such a beautiful couple!

Right out the gate. The day we moved into this house the summer of 2008, we knew there would not be enough room for all the people that would be residing in it until the basement was completed. The whole intent for this home to be built was to join households with my parents. Daddy had become too ill and too forgetful to be left alone if Mama had to run an errand or leave him for any length of time. We listed both their home and ours during peak of the housing bubble of 2007-8. We put the "For Sale by Owner" sign in their front yard first figuring it easiest to have two people move in with nine than vis versa. True to the current market, their house sold in under two weeks, we put money down on a lot for our joint house and moved them in with us then hammered the same for sale by owner sign into our front yard and held our collective breath. And held it. And held it. We broke down and hired a realtor. He held his breath. "You'll need to come down at least $10k if you want any action on it." Each time we drove by the new lot to see the progress being made on our new home, it seemed eerily quiet and void of earth movers, and the sound of nail-guns echoing in the air. Just our lonely little house in the middle of an old what was once a church-owned dry-farm. A few other homes scattered about the field being built and the dens of fox and mice who were in denial that they would soon need to be moving along. After coming down in price a few more 10K times, our home finally sold and all ten of us plus the three furry people moved into the upper floor of the house. We'd hire our own contractor to finish the basement apartment at a much more reasonable rate than the builder. The housing market was in a full crash. There would be no money left for landscaping. Just barely enough to pay for some sprinkler lines and either grass seed or my asking any neighbors if they had any extra sod that was going to the dump we'd be happy to take it off their hands for them.

It took several weeks for blinds to be installed (newspaper taped inside windows worked great), and our boys spent an entire summer out in the field, building forts, digging in fox dens and skate-boarding on home-made skate ramps. I gave up on dusting furniture or wiping down counters after about two weeks. The dirt that would come rolling out of the cuffs of their pants and even out of their hair....well...It was a futile task. The floor-plan of the house had two master bedrooms on the main level. This, so that should my parents ever need to be right near me, that would be an easy transition from the basement apartment to upstairs across the hall from me. While the basement was being finished they lived in the room upstairs that could have one day been theirs. Or just his. Or hers. In a couple of months with the basement finally finished they moved all their furniture down into their wing of the house.

The bedroom right across the hall from our master bedroom. It has this view that I knew Mama would have loved to put her desk right at that window. Pretty even in dreary winter.

By the time we got Mama and Daddy settled into their part of the house, they were quite comfy. The furniture was arranged much the same and Daddy had a couch to lie down on with a book across his chest and a Cat on his lap. Mama had her office. Bronson spent a lot of time with her in her office talking about little Grandma/Grandson things. Rearranging her trinkets, talking about school and art, and in general keeping each other good company, while Daddy's mind was slipping ever so slowly away, and cancer began to attack his insides. The more Mama became involved in his care, the more I became involved in caring for her and him. It's an interesting thing that happens when called upon to do things for your parents that they once did for you when you were a helpless little child. You just do it. You don't give pause, or try to mentally process it. You. Just. Do. It.

Once we realized our time with Daddy would be very limited, Hospice was called in. They are truly angels that walk this earth. They tended to my father with such grace and dignity, and also attended my mother's emotional needs. It gave me a reprieve to spend time with my own young children, knowing that there were others easing the burdens of my parents for a while.

One of my favorite child-hood memories, is of Daddy watching a basketball or football game on T.V. in our small home, and Mama, taking my little brother and me each by a hand and leading us back to her bedroom with a book under her arm. She'd climb up on the bed into the middle and then pat the blankets on each side of her to hop up next to her, one of us on each side. Sometimes it would be several small books, but as we got older they would likely be larger chapter books. Mama had done drama recitations since she was a tiny child and been in the drama club of her High School. And to this day there is not one T.V. show or movie that could compare to the thrill of being read to her in the different voices of all the characters of a book! The giggles! The "Read one more chapter Mama pleeeeeease!!!"

My E and my B

Once my parents were settled and the basement was completely finished with enough room to spare for our three teenaged boys to have a bedroom and bathroom as well, we moved the two youngest Eli, and Bronson out of our master bedroom and into that room across the hall from ours. The room with a view. They had a bunk bed. The bottom bunk was a full size, and most every night, after I knew my parents had settled in for the night downstairs, I'd pick a book and lie down on the bottom bunk. Pat both sides of the blanket for one to lie down on each side of me. We worked our way through "Stuart Little", "Trumpet of the Swan", The "Mrs. Piggle Wiggle" series and all the "Junie B. Jones" books. Eventually I realized they were old enough to understand a larger chapter book. "The Secret Garden". We made it through the first chapter and neither of them said anything about hating it, or it being a dumb girl book, or some such thing, so night after night, I just kept on reading....reading until one or sometimes all of us fell alseep.

Sometime in the middle of reading this book, I got summoned to my parents room. Daddy's time was getting close. The time to be by their sides was here. I folded the book closed, gave the boys each a kiss and told them we'd still finish it, but it would have to wait a little while. I'm not sure how long it was they stayed on the same bed instead of the one climbing up to the top bunk. I do know that I never did finish the book with them. It just seemed so final. Like you know that moment when you breast-fed your last baby for the last time. Or how you remember the first time your Daddy told you that "you're too big to carry in from the car to the house now and you'll need to walk even though I know you're so sleepy Presh...." It's almost as if, if I don't read that last chapter to them, I can freeze time for a moment.

This morning as I walked around the yard (the yard of so many squares of donations of strips of sod), and looked at all the brown, seemingly dead plants, I had the thought come to me that I need to read that last chapter to my boys! The chapter that explains how everything in that garden that seemed to be dead and gone, just needed to be tended and groomed and that it was alive all along! More than anything I need to read that chapter to myself.

Think they'll let me read them a bed-time story?

Awwwwww Sure they will!