My parents, back east in New York state, are moving out of our house that we grew up in. They’re 79 years old and taking on the stairs is wreaking havoc with their legs. They’ve decided to sell the family house and move into a one-story, ranch style house where stairs aren’t an issue.
I know my mother is especially having a tough time with the transition. Five boys and one girl were raised in that colonial house, and I smile when I think about all of the chaos that we all shared in that four-bedroom, three-floor palace.
They bought the house for $13,000 48 years ago. Before that, they lived above my grandmother’s grocery store in a two-bedroom apartment. My mother didn’t go to work until I was in first grade. That’s a time when you could live on one income and parenting was the most important thing in the world.
I call my mom every week, as all of my siblings do, and listening to her talk about packing up makes me sad, but it’s a necessary move as they’ll be across the street from my sister, and the house they bought is a beautiful two bedroom with a big backyard. She’s been trying to go through things and make sure everyone gets what’s theirs. She sent me a suit that I’ll never wear. I think it belongs to one of my brothers. It’s too big.
When they told me about the move, I was shocked. After all, it’s the only place any of us remember playing and being yelled at in. I remember waking up in the morning and having my mom turn up the heat so the radiator would kick on. She’d close the kitchen doors and you could literally sit on the radiator and toast your buns. There would be sounds of people’s feet above your head as my brothers and my sister ran around, fighting for the shower, while I ate some fortified sugar cereal. My poor sister would attempt to use the bathroom, but the minute the shower turned on, one of us would rush in and flush the toilet on her. It wasn’t a house. It was a home.
I remember the stairs that would creak when you tried to walk down them quietly, in order to go watch TV. My mother would instantly wake up and ask what you were doing and where you were going. We always thought we were getting away with something, but parents know more than their children think.
My father was always the one who took us to the emergency room for broken bones and all other sports related injuries. He’d stand outside the room and watch the doctor sew your lip up. He’d have a cup of coffee in his hand and make a face that looked like he was watching someone get their stomach cut open while they were alive. The first thing he’d ask was how much money you had in your pocket. He never trusted the nurses. He thought everybody stole. He once placed five 33-cent stamps on my mother’s desk because he thought the cleaning lady was stealing them from his cigar box. He always bought a big wheel of them and never kept count of how many were used. This way, he’d know if she was taking them. My mother saw them and mailed five envelopes with their postage attached. My father came home, saw the missing stamps, and went insane. He now had his evidence. It didn’t matter who took them. They were gone. The cleaning lady did it. Like Colonel Mustard in the Library with the lead pipe. She was guilty. Even after my mother explained how she used them to send out payments on bills, he didn’t care. He made up his mind. The cleaning lady with the stamps in the TV room.
Dads are like that. They’re very tough to convince and as stubborn as anything that walks this earth. As a gender, men are always righteous.
My mother was the one who would put a cold washcloth on our heads when we didn’t feel good. She would also ask you how to spell diarrhea when writing an excuse for you missing school. My mom is funny like that and would always get a kick out of us getting embarrassed and upset by the joke.
Every Christmas my father would make us wait to come downstairs until he had the old time movie camera ready to go. I’m talking early ‘70s technology. He’d stand at the bottom of the stairs and turn on the camera light that would blind you if you looked directly into it. I mean this thing was bright. You’d put up your hands to block it out, but then you’d see dads hand come into the picture and push you away so he could get some nice film of your pained face.
Our Saint Bernard, Gretchen, used to pull us on the toboggan in the winter. I thought she was as big as a horse back then. She’d let me take a nap on her belly and wouldn’t get up until I awoke. Gretchen would always slobber and lift up the couch with her nose while looking for our cat, Midnight—I always thought that the dog would eat that cat.
I don’t know why, but those were some of the best times of my life. Actually, I do know why. We were a family of five boys, one girl, and two loving parents. A day doesn’t go by when I don’t think of some silly story that occurred there.
I’m glad they’re moving to an easier living. God knows, dealing with all of us, they’ve earned it. I just hope they don’t forget to take that piece of wedding cake out of the freezer that they’ve kept frozen since 1955. I’m surprised my father hasn’t accidentally eaten it in the middle of the night by now.
