Freedom Street Fades

Here's where my parents lived. The garage door is open, and there's their car. I don't know when this picture was taken, but it looks like a nice day. The lawn has just been mowed. I don't know how healthy my mom and dad were at the time. Did my dad mow the lawn? Was my mom able to walk around still?

This is a picture from Google maps. Eventually, like the satellite picture from above, this picture will be updated. Their car will be gone. The garage will look different. Inside, it will be different. That tree will be bigger. So will those bushes.

Freedom St

The house on Freedom Street was my parents house for, I don't know, not twenty years. But I think over fifteen. But as I realized a few weeks ago, it was not my house. It was not the house I grew up in. It was not full of secret childhood memories. I did not get to peek into old corners and discover any surprising secrets about myself. And, I had already been through all the old boxes and stuff in the basement. This house was a small, one-story functional, practical little place that was dark in the middle and way too quite for my tastes. Because it was just me. Both my parents were gone, and it was highly unlikely, I realized, that either of them would ever see Freedom Street again.

When my dad got too sick, they had to put my mom in the nursing home, as he could no longer take care of her. For awhile (a few days? A week?) he was home alone with nothing to do but try and fix his situation. He wasn't quite sick enough be with my mom, yet. But he was getting so sick that he was losing his independence. He had colon cancer, liver cancer, lymphatic cancer and he was having trouble just getting himself from the couch to the refrigerator. The doctors did not recommend this procedure, but they could go in and take a look. Since his systems were shutting down, they might be able to bypass some of them, and give him a few extra days. He was thinking with a few baggies strapped to him, and some surgical tape, he might have a few more weeks to either be with my mom in the nursing home, or, be well enough to take care of her again.

When I got out there stuff was a mess. Once they opened him up, they found bad stuff. He got an infection. They did some emergency surgery, but he was not doing so well.

But this dark house. The first day or so, I had to keep positive. And all his stuff was there as if his day-to-day life was still happening.

Two bananas on the counter.
His Looking Good, Bob glass, and my mom's Happy Birthday coffee mug in the sink.
One half of a two pack of double chocolate chip muffins with St. Patty's Day icing. (a gift, I think, from one of his househelpers).
His pants, socks, and shirt laid out on his bed.
His little bed (the one I slept in as a child) made, as always, perfectly (Air Force training).
Trash, ready to go out.
Pile of newspapers, ready to go out.
A bag of donettes by his bed.
The lawn car guys showing up.
12 packs of Genny Cream Ale and Labatt's Blue.
His glasses.

And his last grocery list.

Wishbook

I found some of the old Sears and Penney's catalogs online. http://www.wishbookweb.com/ And around Christmastime, I sent a bunch of pages to my parents. I had just about everything there was from those catalogs. I remember a great hot wheels Christmas, where I got everything I must've asked for, and some other stuff I did not remember even seeing in the catalog. My dad (wait. santa) had set everything up, too. So it was all set up under the tree and ready to run. Plastic orange is a great all-over-under-the-tree color.

I remember Christmas's pretty well. They were a big deal to me. I have a dad who liked (and still likes) toys, so there was no weird gap there. He seemed to have fun, too. And, because of that, they bought me some cool stuff.

Looking through the catalogs made me recall a small gap that I was aware of as a kid, and I wondered if anyone else remembers this. There were toys that were yours, that you remembered getting, right? A great Christmas (or birthday or some other holiday) and you can remember getting it. It's yours.

But then, there's some other stuff that I remember, that I do not where it came from. I think, as a kid, this was something I was fairly interested in. There were cars and racetracks and stuff that I liked but did not recall receiving.


And, whether it was given to me by my parents, or if it came as a hand-me-down from neighbors, or my sister or something, the point was, that it came to me before I could remember getting it. And, I remember being aware as a kid, that there was this whole section of my earlier life that I could not remember clearly. A blurry, dark area of my seven year old brain, already damaged. It bothered me. It seemed so shameful.


They would explain to me that I was just a baby, and that nobody remembers when they were a baby. But, I did not buy it.

I still don't.