Personal blog of christian
writer & fallible mom
Katy McKenna Raymond
in Kansas City, Missouri
Katy is represented by
Greg Johnson at
WordServe Literary
Read more Katy at
LateBoomer.net
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Recent Posts
- Try
- Becoming Brenda Starr
- Off Beat
- Scattered
- That’s It
- So I’ve Finally Signed With An Agent. Now What?
- The Spoon
- Sciatica
- Sweetheart
- A Woman’s Train of Thought Has No Caboose
- However much we own, we are all still living on borrowed time
- After all, when restaurants shrink portions, they don’t shrink prices.
- As with everything in life, balance is key.
- Slow down, you move too fast…
- Yeah, I know. I have issues.
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E me at katy @ ngenius.com
(No Title)
The old house is looking good, Mom, except it's just so empty. We finally got all the stuff moved out, some to each of our houses, some to Goodwill and, I'm sure you know, quite a lot to the local landfill. It's been painted, spruced, cleaned and dolled-up no end. No one would ever guess you'd lived there for forty-one years. No one but us. The last time the place looked this good was the morning we moved in, while our furniture was still tumbling piece by piece out of the moving van onto the terraced lawn, wondering where in the world we'd dragged it to. The morning we moved in, when three little girls clutching teddy bears and blankets and library books scampered up the fourteen stairs to claim the spots in the "dormitory" where their new twin beds would line up in single file. The morning we moved in, when the house stopped being empty and started being filled with young life, promising life, raucous life. You didn't know it that day, Mom, but soon found out you were pregnant again, this time with a boy, John Vincent. The old house sure knew how to expand and grow and change to suit our demands, didn't it? I walked through it this morning, alone--or so I thought. I encountered no lingering demons or unfriendly ghosts that needed exorcising. I suspect we've taken all those with us as we've moved on, one by one. Still, there is a life in the old place that wasn't there the last time it was empty, when I was only seven. Only in that house can I ever look at the rotary wall phone in the breakfast room, and remember the moment you called from the hospital to say that another new baby was finally here. "Shall we name her Bridget Colleen, Bridget Maureen or Valerie Jane?" you asked. We'd never gotten to vote on anything before! "Bridget Colleen!" we all agreed. It was January, 1967. It was there, over dinner, that nearly every nightly conversation ended with Dad's proclamation, "Bring me the dictionary!" A good dictionary, he believed, put an end to all disputes. I claimed that dictionary from among the old cookbooks and recipes, where it lived, and passed it on to Scott, who knows the "Bring me the dictionary!" stories well. There's a sign in the yard now, Mom. I remember the sign from forty-one years ago, but this one's different. The agent's name is Liz, but that can't be. Lizzie just moved into this house, and she's only five, right? She's playing school on the basement steps with Mary and me, isn't she? Or instigating tickle fights she always wins? The old house is looking great, Mom. It's empty, yes. But still full of a life only we could have brought to it, a life we'll carry with us wherever we go. Thanks, dear house, for bringing us together under your roof. And thanks, dear Mom, for keeping us together with your love.
Posted by Katy on 10/14/02 at 03:49 PM
Fallible Comments...
- I bawled my head off walking through the house today, and then all the way home...and I think we're doing really well! xox
Posted by Katy on 12/31/69 at 06:00 PM
- Okay...did you really have to make me cry?!?! I thought I was dealing with this really well, and your blog got me started. I miss that old house already....................
-----Posted by Bridget on 12/31/69 at 06:00 PM
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