I was so glad it happened…

I was at my house last night. It was the one where I grew up.

I still remember our phone number.

The place was just as it was the day that I left it. My brother had told me that the wall was gone. It was there and in perfect repair. He tries to trick me all the time.

I walked up and down the cement steps. They felt familiar all right.

Owning it again and having it the way it had always been gave me such a sense of peace. I remarked, “This hasn’t changed. Now it is mine , whew, I have waited for so long.”

When I woke up this morning, memories came flooding back. That visit did me well.

Wes and Willy, the modern-day Abbot and Costello, had done the finish carpentry in our “new room”. The addition will always be known as the ” new room”.

Before the addition, there had been no parking lot. That side of the house had tiger lilies along it. The real tiger lilies, bright orange with black freckles. A stone wall held the bank up.

I was glad to see my two friends, the white pine trees,  still waited there for me…I thanked them for their patience. Good ol fellas. I climbed them so often and they never “let me down” as pine trees often do.

The back door opened and our old dog Bosco stood there confused. Ah, the day he went blind and had to be put to sleep still haunts the back porch. That’s ok…it happened.

I giggled to myself. The cellar stairs were just the same. My sister made me stand on the top ones when she ventured to the dryer. This way she felt safe from monsters. She could see my feet. I never had the heart to put on the monster feet I had imagined scaring her with…HA! Funny idea though.

The main hallway remarkably had the very same banister! Very cool. That is where my baby brother peaked through the wrung and made my mother laugh. She was angry with him. He just said,”Boo”, and her anger was replaced with laughter.

Those stairs were the ones that had broken my wrist. Untied shoe laces and an arm full of clothes, I tumbled.

There’s the coat closet. The “principal’s office” where my brother sat as Donna and I played school. Yes, there were gender issues when I was 10 but they took on such an ironic justice. Proved to us that it was lonely at the top. He sat in his closet, all alone. Ha!

The den was the place where my cat had scared the life out of me! He startled me while I was mesmerized by a haunting movie.

Yes, it felt so good to be home.

32 years have passed and I still could visit it! It is still mine.

This is why I have never ever gone back there…

The place is 2 miles from my house, in the same town, on a dead-end street.

I prefer going home in my dreams.