Living so close to the home I grew up in, my children often hear, “There’s the house that Daddy grew up in” or “You know, when I was a kid, there was nothing but cornfields where the Wal-Mart now stands.” We have driven past my old house so often that my kids will tease me and mimic my words because they recognize the territory. On Saturday mornings, I used to take Frederic and Lily to baseball practice at Margaret Mead Junior High School where I attended from 1982-1984. Frederic's first coach is married to a woman I used to play with a lot when I was younger and their son is not only on our team, but my son considers him a friend and invited him to his sixth birthday party several years ago.
My in-laws sold the house in which my wife was raised and moved into a smaller home on the other side of town. For all of our children’s lives, the ability for my wife to share a complete history of what she did in each room of the house was easily accomplished. With the exception of a change in wallpaper or the color of paint or carpeting that has been altered, the house had remained virtually identical to the house of my wife’s childhood. My children have heard the stories and have no need to imagine what things may have looked like in the tale. All they needed to do was simply open their eyes and look around.
“This was my room from the time I was four until I was seven,” my wife would say to the kids, as they received their requested Tour of the Mommy Rooms.
“Then I was in this room from when I was seven until I was 14,” she would continue, “And finally, I lived in this room until I was in college.” My son was always in awe. “You had three bedrooms while you lived here? Neat.”
On the other hand, when I tried to tell my kids about the house in which I was raised, their ability to fully visualize the setting of the story was always compromised. In fact, my capacity to share much of what happened during those years was limited because of how far removed I was from the setting. My parents divorced in 1988 the summer after I turned 18, the summer after I graduated high school, the summer before I left for college. My ability to faithfully describe the house I spent over 11 years in was diminished from 12 years of distance. I felt cheated, in a sense, because the only things I found myself remembering about that time, were the bad things that happened over the years, leading up to the divorce. I have told my children about the time my father got so mad at my mother—for whatever reason—that he took the dinner plate he had just finished eating off of and slammed it on the kitchen floor, sending shards of ceramic all around. I have told them about the time I was lying on our black lab in the kitchen because I thought we were so close and he enjoyed the feel of my body as I did his. My dog, however, growled as I continued to invade his space and after several minutes of my ignoring the warning sign, the dog snapped at me and made my right ear bleed. I have not told them, but I always remember, the time my father chased me around the front yard with a mini baseball bat because I was 30 minutes late coming home from the mall. He swung the bad at me as I ran and he connected with the back of my right hand, the pain reminding me never to be late again.
These were not the only stories I wanted my children to hear about my childhood. These were not the only stories I wanted to remember. I wanted them to hear about the good times, the times when my household felt like a family, the times when I shared a warm moment with someone, the times I felt loved.
Each time I drove past my old house, I wondered what it looked like on the inside and how it compared to the house I remembered. Each time I drove past the house or better, each time I dared to take the car into the Circle and make a quick turnaround, I wondered what my former self would be doing; a ghost peering through the bedroom window and offering me a knowing nod. Each time I drove by the house, I wanted to knock on the door and ask the people who lived there—the people who bought the house from my parents—if I could take a tour. I often hoped for a For Sale sign to greet me, announcing an upcoming Open House which I would certainly attend. Each time I drove by, was another time I was disappointed because I didn’t have the courage to stop or because there was absolutely no reason the people living there would have any reason to leave. They were filling the house with memories of their own and didn’t want anyone to take them away. I understood.
But then I was turning 36 and I got this nagging feeling that my life had no meaning; the mid-life crisis thingy. I started to question my existence and it seemed like I was forgetting who I was as a child, as a teen and how I got to become the man I grew to become.
I needed a key to unlock my closed doors. I needed the combination to that lock, written on a lost piece of paper. I needed something to help me bring it all back and somehow make me hole again.
I sat down and wrote the following words:
January 4, 2006
Mark Hudgins
XXX XXXXXX XXXXXX
Elk Grove Village, IL 60007
Dear Mr. Hudgins:
My name is Cory Fosco and I used to live at XXX XXXXXX XXXXXX from 1977 – 1988. Currently, my wife, Cyndi, who is also from Elk Grove Village and our two children live about a mile from you and have lived here for almost five years. I am writing to you with a request hoping you can help me…
The letter went on to ask the Hudgins—who probably younger than I was when I wrote the letter when they bought the house from my parents—if I could take some time to invade their privacy. I wanted their permission to schedule an impromptu Open House, where I intended to bring my wife and children all around the home of my childhood and help them—help me—possibly understand my life. As if it was all that simple: take a walk through a home and suddenly that confusing life will make sense. I knew better, but it still seemed like a good idea. It was a step in the right direction, I had concluded, since I was having these age issues and at least, maybe I would feel a little bit better about myself in the long run.
I was turning 36, ten days after I wrote the letter, exactly twice as old as I was the last time I walked out of that house. The idea meant something to me. It was a birthday gift that only I could give myself and I concluded it was a gift I could give my family—a piece of my history that came with real life pictures, real life examples.
Two days later, Mrs. Hudgins called my cell phone and in an insanely uncomfortable conversation, accepted my request and agreed—on January 14, my 36th birthday—to let me tour my (well, her) home.
It was as if she had posted an imaginary sign on her front lawn, a sign meant only for me, a sign only I could see that read: Looking for Ghosts Open House: Saturday, January 14, 2006, by self-requested invitation only.
No comments:
Post a Comment