House Of Ghosts
Six times I entered the living room and stepped to the right to avoid Granddad’s recliner. Six times I reminded myself that the recliner was no longer there. Old habits die hard. The recliner used to always be there. It was by a window that provided extra light Granddad would use working his newspaper’s crossword and Jumble.
“Unscramble ‘ITNHK’ for me. Think real hard, now. Think!”
Cleaning out this old house was a dreaded experience. I was handling the stench of mice feces and moldy carpet, but the ghosts were starting to get me. The ghosts were precious rather than horrible, yet they were haunting just the same as I kept moving around the tiny rooms.
“I bid thirty-one. Aces trumps. Now watch closely, partner. I’m gonna write you a letter with this domino!”
I had learned to play forty-two in this room at the hands of an intellectual master. He could have been above us all but chose not to be. He was patient enough to hand down the beginning skills of a family tradition game so I would not be left out forever. I used to think he could draw seven dominoes, leave them face down, bid thirty, and make it. I was always glad when he was my partner. I learned to lose gracefully, realizing that it was more fun to play and possibly lose than to sit around doing nothing.
A brother was taking anything valuable out of the refrigerator. More ghosts.
“I made an extra pie today because I just had a feeling y’all were coming. Granddad told me ya weren’t, but I just knew ya were!”
I used to hate Grandmother’s homegrown vegetables. Why would anyone raise a huge, backbreaking garden when one could buy green beans in a can that tasted so much better to this city boy? I usually had to sit at the table between two older siblings who made sure that three times the necessary amount of those foul-smelling vegetables ended up on my plate. The refrigerator and the freezer seemed endless, but they held ice cream as well as vegetables. The stove seemed like it was working from before dawn to after dusk cooking for all the relatives. In my early childhood, I thought a grandmother’s job was to cook for the masses that showed up on any given weekend. I was wrong. I learned a grandmother’s job is to love enough to do anything for any of hers, and that included making warm meals.
“Run out to the quilt box in the garage and bring in two extra quilts. It might get colder than we expected tonight!”
This is a three-room house. The restrooms and shower off the back wall are smaller than an average closet, but many nights we crammed close to twenty people in this home. Holiday meals would see even greater numbers. Outdoors, station wagons, and the garage were utilized as bed and table space. No hotels existed within miles of this place, and nobody would have used it even if one had been around. I learned that personal space and hot water in the shower don’t hold a candle to being in a room full of people who loved me. I could laugh here. I could cry here. I am crying now.
“Here, kitty kitty kitty!”
The ghost of a grown man, walking to the cats’ food bowls carrying breakfast’s leftover gravy and a spoon, never leaves this garage. I learned early in life not to be wasteful; somebody – or something – is less fortunate than I. To this day I wipe my plate clean with a piece of bread thinking about those cats. Egg cartons were collected and given to a neighbor who sold fresh eggs. Old garments were saved so quilts could be made from the material. Pots with broken handles and replaced cooking utensils became excellent sandbox toys for baking mudpies and sandcakes. Environmentalists? Partially. Old motor oil was poured into a milk can for use as a lubricant and to kill weeds around fence posts instead of being dumped. Yet more than environmentalists, they were survivors of the Great Depression. What we have today we may not have tomorrow due to forces beyond our control. Thank God daily for what we have, take nothing for granted, do not be wasteful.
Empty quart and pint jars on that shelf. More voices as we box them.
“I talked to Rosie today. She was canning preserves from fruit her neighbor gave her. She thought this year’s batch would be better than last year’s.”
It was hard for me to understand why old folks called it “canning” when they were holding a glass jar in their hands instead of a metal can. With the phone, Grandmother kept tabs on everyone. The latest news from relatives, church friends, and neighbors was treasured material. My immaturity deemed it silly to waste good daylight time talking about canning fruit, the grandkids’ latest grades and honors, or a pet’s antics. I learned that not everyone was as happy as my grandparents were. There are a lot of people who treasure a phone call from a friend; indeed, it makes their entire day. I learned about shut-ins, how little things to a young mobile person are life’s imperatives to those who cannot get out due to limitations of their worn-out body. What mattered was not what was said on the phone. What mattered was that my grandparents had taken the time to put their cheery voices on the line and brighten up people’s days by letting them know they cared. I learned “Less of Self, More of Others.”
The kitchen is no longer spotless. The garage is in disarray. In the front yard we have a rapidly-growing trash pile as we find more and more ruined leftovers from a house that used to demand our respect, our obedience, and our love. I find it appropriate that a day marking the end of an incredible era in my life should be cold and dark because of low overcast. Why is this so hard for me? Our life is but a vapor that vanishes after a little time, according to James 4:14, and it is appointed unto men once to die prior to the judgment, per Hebrews 9:27. Life goes on, waiting for nobody, and this house is just a material possession; technically, this house is a serious safety hazard. Maybe the ghosts in these walls are trying to teach me lessons even still. I think about people that I enjoy meeting daily and realize that this house helped me be different from them because I come from an oddity in today’s society – an oddity called a close family. In a close family, members know who both of their parents are unlike so many kids with whom I went to school. In a close family, parents sit and pray together at mealtimes holding hands. In a close family, parents take care of grandparents when they can no longer live independently because parents realize those grandparents loved them enough to bring them up with morals.
My grandparents did not just live here; they were larger than life here. Granddad sat in that same recliner and made up poems in my birthday cards just for me – and just for hundreds of other grandkids, church members, and friends. In contrast, Grandmother never sat anywhere; her cooking, cleaning, swinging with the grandkids, picking buckets of peas from the garden, hugging, mending, and millions of other details never stopped and provided ways of expressing love for me far beyond mere words. The five acres of flatland here saw world-class Frisbee action, endless football and batting practice, and even a boomerang experiment. Walking to the bridge down the road to throw pebbles into the small stream that drained the adjacent fields was an adventure into independence. I made some of my earliest money picking up aluminum cans by the freeway. These rooms saw my cousin put me in a doll’s bed when I was a newborn. Before the nearby floodlights moved in, we would spend summer nights gathered around Granddad’s homemade bench swing listening to Mom swap the latest news and catch up on events of people we did not know. The bench swing has long since gone to the termites, and even on clear nights it is hard to see the kaleidoscope of stars that used to occupy our attention while we rested from chasing thousands of fireflies.
“Who wants to go with me to the store?” I do, Granddad. Right now. Where are you?
“What would you like for breakfast tomorrow?” How about a hug, Grandmother? Why did you have to leave?
I learned much here as a child when life vibrated through this house. Then, the house saw marriage and renewal. Now, it has seen death and the physical end. However, the strength of these ghosts pounding messages in my brain is forcing me to learn anew. While this house sheltered and warmed loves ones, another house would have done the same provided it held the same people. Further, I see my relatives today perform so many similar acts of hospitality that I understand my grandparents did not have a patent on love. Instead of the flesh I called my grandparents or this rotten sheetrock that kept them, it is their example that looms larger than ever in me – in us. They took a house of which many would be ashamed and made it a home to rival any in the world because of how they acted. They loved openly and disagreed privately. They smiled every time we entered regardless of how long we were staying. They taught us how to work, and they worked alongside of us making us think we were really important. They read the Bible in front of us, and more importantly, they lived the Bible in front of us. They cared deeply and discussed qualities of future husbands/wives with us; they showed us marriage is a lifetime commitment – not a social convenience that can be discarded when it wears out. They were sad to see us leave, and they begged us to come again soon. And they meant it. They taught us to focus on the inside of a person rather than the outside and the accompanying materialism, to pay attention to small details, and to finish a job when started. We learned that God is first, family is second, friends are third, and the rest matters little because these three things compose most of life’s importance while we have the privilege of experiencing life.
“Y’all give us a call when ya get home so we will know ya made it safe!”
If I do “make it” okay, it will be largely due to the two people I saw living life to the fullest in this house. As I walk around the fields that surround it for the last time, I hear ghosts on the riding lawnmower, in the sheds, around the pecan tree and the peach trees, near the pump house, and by the trash barrel. It is hard to deal with so many memories in one day, but they serve as a reminder of my fortune – my heritage. I am taking some of these ghosts with me for rainy days when I feel like the world is drowning me. Away from this house, I can control them; today, they have been controlling me since I arrived.
Everything worth keeping is loaded onto my truck and a trailer. We joke about “accidentally” dropping a match in the old house to keep it from falling on the next person who walks in. Part of me agrees with my cousin who is saying the house is not supposed to look like this. Another part of me knows that the ghosts will keep it looking the way it should in my mind; that is where my grandparents live even as they did when they physically walked here and molded my life.
Pulling away from the house, I’m blasted by a barrage of ghostly horns as I get to the first corner. It was a tradition; whoever was driving would honk the horn loud and long when we rounded the first corner, and everyone else would roll their window down and wave until the house was no longer in sight.
I look across the fields at the house and start to swerve! Is that a tall man wearing khakis waving his arms like a windmill? No. Just another ghost…
“Unscramble ‘ITNHK’ for me. Think real hard, now. Think!”
Cleaning out this old house was a dreaded experience. I was handling the stench of mice feces and moldy carpet, but the ghosts were starting to get me. The ghosts were precious rather than horrible, yet they were haunting just the same as I kept moving around the tiny rooms.
“I bid thirty-one. Aces trumps. Now watch closely, partner. I’m gonna write you a letter with this domino!”
I had learned to play forty-two in this room at the hands of an intellectual master. He could have been above us all but chose not to be. He was patient enough to hand down the beginning skills of a family tradition game so I would not be left out forever. I used to think he could draw seven dominoes, leave them face down, bid thirty, and make it. I was always glad when he was my partner. I learned to lose gracefully, realizing that it was more fun to play and possibly lose than to sit around doing nothing.
A brother was taking anything valuable out of the refrigerator. More ghosts.
“I made an extra pie today because I just had a feeling y’all were coming. Granddad told me ya weren’t, but I just knew ya were!”
I used to hate Grandmother’s homegrown vegetables. Why would anyone raise a huge, backbreaking garden when one could buy green beans in a can that tasted so much better to this city boy? I usually had to sit at the table between two older siblings who made sure that three times the necessary amount of those foul-smelling vegetables ended up on my plate. The refrigerator and the freezer seemed endless, but they held ice cream as well as vegetables. The stove seemed like it was working from before dawn to after dusk cooking for all the relatives. In my early childhood, I thought a grandmother’s job was to cook for the masses that showed up on any given weekend. I was wrong. I learned a grandmother’s job is to love enough to do anything for any of hers, and that included making warm meals.
“Run out to the quilt box in the garage and bring in two extra quilts. It might get colder than we expected tonight!”
This is a three-room house. The restrooms and shower off the back wall are smaller than an average closet, but many nights we crammed close to twenty people in this home. Holiday meals would see even greater numbers. Outdoors, station wagons, and the garage were utilized as bed and table space. No hotels existed within miles of this place, and nobody would have used it even if one had been around. I learned that personal space and hot water in the shower don’t hold a candle to being in a room full of people who loved me. I could laugh here. I could cry here. I am crying now.
“Here, kitty kitty kitty!”
The ghost of a grown man, walking to the cats’ food bowls carrying breakfast’s leftover gravy and a spoon, never leaves this garage. I learned early in life not to be wasteful; somebody – or something – is less fortunate than I. To this day I wipe my plate clean with a piece of bread thinking about those cats. Egg cartons were collected and given to a neighbor who sold fresh eggs. Old garments were saved so quilts could be made from the material. Pots with broken handles and replaced cooking utensils became excellent sandbox toys for baking mudpies and sandcakes. Environmentalists? Partially. Old motor oil was poured into a milk can for use as a lubricant and to kill weeds around fence posts instead of being dumped. Yet more than environmentalists, they were survivors of the Great Depression. What we have today we may not have tomorrow due to forces beyond our control. Thank God daily for what we have, take nothing for granted, do not be wasteful.
Empty quart and pint jars on that shelf. More voices as we box them.
“I talked to Rosie today. She was canning preserves from fruit her neighbor gave her. She thought this year’s batch would be better than last year’s.”
It was hard for me to understand why old folks called it “canning” when they were holding a glass jar in their hands instead of a metal can. With the phone, Grandmother kept tabs on everyone. The latest news from relatives, church friends, and neighbors was treasured material. My immaturity deemed it silly to waste good daylight time talking about canning fruit, the grandkids’ latest grades and honors, or a pet’s antics. I learned that not everyone was as happy as my grandparents were. There are a lot of people who treasure a phone call from a friend; indeed, it makes their entire day. I learned about shut-ins, how little things to a young mobile person are life’s imperatives to those who cannot get out due to limitations of their worn-out body. What mattered was not what was said on the phone. What mattered was that my grandparents had taken the time to put their cheery voices on the line and brighten up people’s days by letting them know they cared. I learned “Less of Self, More of Others.”
The kitchen is no longer spotless. The garage is in disarray. In the front yard we have a rapidly-growing trash pile as we find more and more ruined leftovers from a house that used to demand our respect, our obedience, and our love. I find it appropriate that a day marking the end of an incredible era in my life should be cold and dark because of low overcast. Why is this so hard for me? Our life is but a vapor that vanishes after a little time, according to James 4:14, and it is appointed unto men once to die prior to the judgment, per Hebrews 9:27. Life goes on, waiting for nobody, and this house is just a material possession; technically, this house is a serious safety hazard. Maybe the ghosts in these walls are trying to teach me lessons even still. I think about people that I enjoy meeting daily and realize that this house helped me be different from them because I come from an oddity in today’s society – an oddity called a close family. In a close family, members know who both of their parents are unlike so many kids with whom I went to school. In a close family, parents sit and pray together at mealtimes holding hands. In a close family, parents take care of grandparents when they can no longer live independently because parents realize those grandparents loved them enough to bring them up with morals.
My grandparents did not just live here; they were larger than life here. Granddad sat in that same recliner and made up poems in my birthday cards just for me – and just for hundreds of other grandkids, church members, and friends. In contrast, Grandmother never sat anywhere; her cooking, cleaning, swinging with the grandkids, picking buckets of peas from the garden, hugging, mending, and millions of other details never stopped and provided ways of expressing love for me far beyond mere words. The five acres of flatland here saw world-class Frisbee action, endless football and batting practice, and even a boomerang experiment. Walking to the bridge down the road to throw pebbles into the small stream that drained the adjacent fields was an adventure into independence. I made some of my earliest money picking up aluminum cans by the freeway. These rooms saw my cousin put me in a doll’s bed when I was a newborn. Before the nearby floodlights moved in, we would spend summer nights gathered around Granddad’s homemade bench swing listening to Mom swap the latest news and catch up on events of people we did not know. The bench swing has long since gone to the termites, and even on clear nights it is hard to see the kaleidoscope of stars that used to occupy our attention while we rested from chasing thousands of fireflies.
“Who wants to go with me to the store?” I do, Granddad. Right now. Where are you?
“What would you like for breakfast tomorrow?” How about a hug, Grandmother? Why did you have to leave?
I learned much here as a child when life vibrated through this house. Then, the house saw marriage and renewal. Now, it has seen death and the physical end. However, the strength of these ghosts pounding messages in my brain is forcing me to learn anew. While this house sheltered and warmed loves ones, another house would have done the same provided it held the same people. Further, I see my relatives today perform so many similar acts of hospitality that I understand my grandparents did not have a patent on love. Instead of the flesh I called my grandparents or this rotten sheetrock that kept them, it is their example that looms larger than ever in me – in us. They took a house of which many would be ashamed and made it a home to rival any in the world because of how they acted. They loved openly and disagreed privately. They smiled every time we entered regardless of how long we were staying. They taught us how to work, and they worked alongside of us making us think we were really important. They read the Bible in front of us, and more importantly, they lived the Bible in front of us. They cared deeply and discussed qualities of future husbands/wives with us; they showed us marriage is a lifetime commitment – not a social convenience that can be discarded when it wears out. They were sad to see us leave, and they begged us to come again soon. And they meant it. They taught us to focus on the inside of a person rather than the outside and the accompanying materialism, to pay attention to small details, and to finish a job when started. We learned that God is first, family is second, friends are third, and the rest matters little because these three things compose most of life’s importance while we have the privilege of experiencing life.
“Y’all give us a call when ya get home so we will know ya made it safe!”
If I do “make it” okay, it will be largely due to the two people I saw living life to the fullest in this house. As I walk around the fields that surround it for the last time, I hear ghosts on the riding lawnmower, in the sheds, around the pecan tree and the peach trees, near the pump house, and by the trash barrel. It is hard to deal with so many memories in one day, but they serve as a reminder of my fortune – my heritage. I am taking some of these ghosts with me for rainy days when I feel like the world is drowning me. Away from this house, I can control them; today, they have been controlling me since I arrived.
Everything worth keeping is loaded onto my truck and a trailer. We joke about “accidentally” dropping a match in the old house to keep it from falling on the next person who walks in. Part of me agrees with my cousin who is saying the house is not supposed to look like this. Another part of me knows that the ghosts will keep it looking the way it should in my mind; that is where my grandparents live even as they did when they physically walked here and molded my life.
Pulling away from the house, I’m blasted by a barrage of ghostly horns as I get to the first corner. It was a tradition; whoever was driving would honk the horn loud and long when we rounded the first corner, and everyone else would roll their window down and wave until the house was no longer in sight.
I look across the fields at the house and start to swerve! Is that a tall man wearing khakis waving his arms like a windmill? No. Just another ghost…