The House That Built Me

Consider joining me in the house that built me...

The house that built me was not even my own, or at least not where I spent the majority of my time. I lived in that house only twice a year, maybe two months total. It always was and still is. A small fire a couple of years ago may have changed the color of the paneled walls or the number of fans in the ceiling, but it is the same house I knew growing up. And when I go in, I inhale. I gently run a hand along the counter top…





blue rotary phone
smell of ivory soap
jar of canned cherries on the drain board

I always knew the light would be on over the television, no matter how late we pulled into the sandy drive, headlights hitting the old garage with white peeling paint. The door would squeak and she'd be there, she was always there, she is still there, holding the squeaky screen door open and you can't get by her without her giving you a little pinch. Those were the times she had not come to fetch us on her own; driving the rural school bus only to get in the car and drive 4 more hours one way to get her girls. And she never let us down. If she said she would be there, she was there. The house used to smell like coffee and camel cigarettes, unfiltered, but he gave those up at the age of 70 something.  I step over an oxygen line...





microwave in the corner
Grandpa's chair in the kitchen where he put on his shoes
pancakes heavy as lead some days





His chair from the kitchen sits on my front porch, a different color. The old stove now sits in pieces somewhere outside and the sink I took baths in probably out in the rabbit shed or at least near it. Their usefulness used up, but never thrown away. They join all the others: the rusty farming equipment, baling wire that could stretch from here and back, old vehicles and tractors trying their best to become dust, and wood…piles of wood from the man who built things…does he know how he built me I wonder? The white linoleum floor is immaculate…





material stacked high
decade old games and puzzles lined up in the old closet with the key hole door
coo coo clock from Europe

We were kids and more importantly allowed to be kids. We played on the seemingly large mound that made the cellar, and rode the lawn mower around like our own little car. We had to work too and for as many times as she said "no", she must have made up for it in "yes", because I remember her as a "yes" Grandma. We swam and hung our towels on the old line, ate and cleared off the table, making sure to save the ice for the next meal; we slept under blue and white ticking bedspreads and made our beds every morning. We showered and wore shower caps and used thread bare towels. We wondered who you had to be to get to use the thick ones on the high shelf, next the canisters and the crock pot. I touch the brown apron with ruffles hanging by the window…





margarine bowls for cereal bowels
cowboy enamelware plate worth fighting over
buckets of cherry tomatoes on the porch

We played cards. Oh how we played cards! We ate puffy cheetos and drank grape Kool-Aid from the yellow plastic cups harvested like little golden buckets after hockey games by the aunts and uncles, and we never leaned on the table. Small piles of warm laundry folded right there on the very table we ate off of, and the old socks found a new home in the kitchen drawer as a dish rags. Nothing was wasted and if you tried, you had to bury it deep in the waste basket lined with newspaper. But she'd find it when she went out to burn trash. She'd give you a good scolding and then take you out on a three wheeler ride until the sun went down. I finger through the stacks of quilting magazines and gently move a long, spider like arm of a plant draped over the end table…





recliner lined living room
crochet butterfly magnets on the fridge
boot scraper outside the door

That house made me crave the everyday ordinary. I wanted to know the furniture would always be there, in its very own place. That was a sign that the people would always be there in their very own place. The stable home in the unstable life. Love wasn't scary and laughter was loud and both echoed in that house. It still does. I walk into the house now and I know were everything and everyone is and my children do too. I open closets to inhale the scent of them and I hope she doesn't catch me and then laugh at my silliness…





cookies on the counter in the old Tupperware rectangle
chair in the bathroom, in front of the laundry basket
cards lined up on the window sill

My children run in and head straight for the toys I played with. The baby sits in the really old high chair and the kids get in trouble for leaning on the table. We know the big yellow pitcher in the fridge has tea and the pop is in the fridge by the washing machine. Their little hands wrap around yellow plastic cups gathered at hockey games and they slurp grape Kool-Aid like there is no tomorrow, because for them, there isn't. This is the only place in the world they drink grape Kool-Aid and eat cream filled cookies. She gets on to them for being rowdy and then grabs them to plant wet Grandma kisses on their cherub faces…





big red barn, time and weather worn
chicken coop foundation
blue ticking bedspread

They don't leave the windows open much anymore. All the beds lined wall to wall have been replaced with a quilting machine and the yellow bedroom now has white curtains with a big blue flower. But the sun still rises in the living room and sets in the bathroom. I did not learn about God in that home, but I learned about His characteristics: unending, stable, unconditional, long lasting, the same - yesterday, today and tomorrow, sacrificing. I watched them work and then they played. Now I watch them rest and then they sort of play. They were by no means perfect, none of us are. She is negative and bossy and complains…and then laughs at herself for even she sees. But the house, the house was an oasis in this wild, fast world. Time stood still; time stands still even now when I enter those four walls. And I cry when we pull out of that sandy drive way.





That's the house that built me.

Join me in remembering the house that built you or the house that is building your family now?  Leave a link in the comments.  I would love to visit.