Goodbye Stanley Drive

Goodbye Stanley Drive.

My Mama died in November of 2017. She lived in the same home for nearly fifty years. We moved there when I was three. Five bedrooms, three bathrooms, a downstairs with a fireplace, an upstairs with windows that looked out on sky and oak trees. Over time, my parents added a horse corral in the back for my sister’s horse and a playhouse that my Dad built for me. For many years, there was a vacant lot next door where I would wander out to visit my favorite tree, one that I could climb and where I loved to sit and think. My Dad nailed little boards onto the tree, just the right size for my feet, to make it easier for me to get up into it. I did a lot of sitting and thinking in that tree when I was little.

Earlier this week, I went to that house for the last time.

It went on the market a few weeks ago. It sold within a week, for cash.

A family bought it. They have five children.

I am grateful. Grateful that a family will live there and that it is not just the latest acquisition of a foreign investment firm.

My older sister (ten years older than me) is the executor of my mom’s trust. My sister’s good husband is a contractor. After my Mama died, it took us a year to empty the house of my mother’s cherished possessions. (Every once in awhile, over the years, my mom would jokingly say, “I’m leaving all this for you to sort through!” My sister and I would laugh with her, and then look around and hope that she was kidding. Except she wasn’t.)

After the emptying, and the estate sale, and the garage sale, my brother-in-law started the remodeling. It took longer than they planned. (Don’t these things always take longer than we plan?). It turned out to be a good thing, though, since home prices in our little town skyrocketed over the last few years, especially since the Covid.

My sister texted me the other day and said, “If you want to go by the house again, better do it soon.”

Kind of like what the hospice nurse says when she sees that it’s almost time.

So I went the other day, and I took pictures.

Pictures of the big rock in the front yard where I loved to sit. It is huge. It came from the backyard, from where my Dad had his garden. They moved it to that spot in the front yard with a tractor. It made my Mom so happy, that rock in the front yard.

The people who are buying the house will not know the story of the rock.

(Unless I tell them. Maybe I will tell them).

So many things they have no way of knowing.

The big (big is not the right word: gigantic? Room sized? It’s probably forty years old and is at least twenty feet wide) camellia in the front yard came from my Grandpa’s nursery. He lived in Tumwater, Washington and specialized in Rhododendrons (hardest word to spell ever), and the front yard was full of them. My Mom and Dad were so proud of their “Rhodies,” as they called them. We have so many family Easter pictures taken in front of  them.

My Dad’s garden in the back is gone now, the fence torn down. But there was a time when he grew the best tomatoes, peppers and Swiss chard. He always fought the deer. The garden fence was strong and tall, but they somehow always managed to get over it. He spent weeks, analyzing the problem, making the fence taller and taller. Until one day he watched the deer, and realized that they were going under it.

Maybe I will write them a letter, this new family who will live in the house where I grew up. I could tell them how my Dad used to pick me up and carry me over his shoulder up the stairs to bed. Or that the room in the back corner of the house was my Mom’s sewing room. The room in the middle where the laundry room is now was my Dad’s den. I remember him sitting there in the evenings, writing out report cards my hand. He was a sixth grade teacher for years. My Mom taught preschool. The back bedroom was my sister’s. She sewed her wedding dress there.

Maybe we should warn them that there are flocks of wild turkeys that wander through the neighborhood, and one day, my Dad was looking out the second story bathroom window and almost cut himself shaving when he realized there was a turkey looking back at him. They can fly a little, you know.

I could tell them about the small fern-like weeds that are just starting to sprout in the yard. They look innocent, but they grow up to be the terrible Velcro weeds, which are infamous for attaching to your socks and the dog’s ears. I made the mistake once of thinking they were friendly, of letting them grow unchecked. For a short time, the burrs look like delicate white flowers, sort of a Queen Ann’s lace. They are not. Might be good to do something about those before they get too big.

Also, those adorable deer that are lounging in the woods behind the house? They are so cute! Bambi and friends! But they are ruthless and will eat just about anything that you plant. Roses are their favorites. My parents learned that through trial and error over the years. Hopefully, those lessons will come easier for you.

Be careful of that hill below the house. It’s steeper than it looks. I tried out a bike my cousin gave me when I was seven, but nobody realized that I didn’t know how to use the brakes (apparently I didn’t realize it either). I went over the handlebars at the bottom of the hill, much to the horror of my father, who was standing at the bottom, cheering me on. He told me later that it was one of the most frightening moments of his life, watching me on that little bike, picking up speed, unable to stop, him unable to help me. My first concussion.

Over the years, there were hundreds of birthday parties in that house.  All that candy. All that cake (we favored ice cream cakes from Baskin Robbins for birthdays) and my Grandma’s pies, that she baked and then criticized, even though we told her over and over again how delicious they were. My parents and grandparents played endless games of pinochle around the kitchen table. Good dogs and good cats  joined us, including the cat and kittens that my Mom discovered in the washing machine one day (when the washer and dryer were out in the garage. You probably won’t have that problem now that it has been moved inside and upstairs. A much easier way to do laundry!)

Nearly 50 Christmases. 50 New Year’s Eves. 50 Halloweens. My Mom, who was a preschool teacher, used to answer the door and exclaim, “Who is that scary ______ or beautiful _______” to her little students, much to their delight, that Mrs. Taylor did not recognize them!  Don’t expect many trick or treaters anymore, though. The neighborhood has changed.

My brother-in-law redid all the parts of the house that needed updating. The stairs are the same, though. And the wood floors in the living room. He just refinished them.

Most of the people that we loved best in the world walked those stairs, those floors at one time. If you are quiet, maybe you will hear echoes of their footsteps. Four generations. Hundreds of friends.

And now it is time for you (new family that I might write a letter to).

We wish you birthday parties and sleepovers: hundreds of them. Quiet nights in the backyard looking at the stars. Maybe a new swing set or play structure. This house held my family through weddings, births, and deaths. Now it is time for us to move on. The house is letting us go. But it will love you, and will hold you and your stories,  today and for decades to come. You will become part of it, as it was part of us. All the love we had, for each other, for the house, remains. Now it’s yours.

Welcome home.