1109 Revisited

This is sort of a bitter-sweet story. My Mom laughs as she tells it, and it definitely has its funny moments, but at its core, this is a story about the end of an era. My Grandparents had just moved into assisted living, and my Mom and Aunt Pat (who had to travel about six hours to get back to Alton) were charged with organizing the auction of my Grandparents' home, as well as most of their possessions. This story takes place the night after that auction.

1109 Wilkinson isn't an amazing house. It has plumbing problems, no dining room, and very little space to move around. It is, however, a completely magical place. My Grandparents moved to the house in the mid-1960s, and lived there until 2003. They raised five children in the house, helped raise another several grandchildren, and hosted countless holidays. There was a ghost on the second floor, fairies that lived under a bush in the front yard, trees for climbing, a rock garden with a rock full of treasures from near and far, berries to be picked in the spring, and a tremendous amount of love. I haven't been to the old house in over five years, but I still have frequent dreams about going there again.

As my mom tells this story, remember that she is telling it to me, and therefore, she goes back and forth between calling her parents "Mom and Dad" and "Grandma and Grandpa." She also refers to her siblings as uncles and aunts. The siblings mentioned are Pat (born in 1947,) Mike (born in 1950,) Kathy (my mom, born in 1960,) Mark (born in 1962,) and Tim (born in 1964.)

Well, we had just sold Mom and Dad's house, and Aunt Pat and I decided to stay there one last night, just the two of us, and kind of reminisce and celebrate. You know, selling it but reminiscing the good times. And we went from room to room in the house, drinking margaritas and talking about each room, like this is the room she and I shared, and this is the room that Mike had that they painted. He painted real pretty great pictures of grapes, vines of grapes on the door. And her room, Grandpa stepped in paint and made foot prints all through the room. It went under the bed and up the walls. And then there was the room that I shared with Uncle Mark and Uncle Tim. And then there was the room that I finally got the room of my own, and I was too scared practically to sleep in it by myself because I was so use to sleeping with somebody else.

We went from room to room talking about the different things. And we talked about where the Christmas tree was at Christmas; what corner it was in different years, and different places we had had it. And we talked about different things that Grandma had hanging up on the wall that we remembered, and some reason she and I both remember ceramic fruit hanging in the kitchen on the wall, over by the steps as you go upstairs. And I remember sitting in the closet when I was... in my closet when I was probably a young teenager, and just moping in the closet all by myself. But I thought it was pretty cool because it a place that nobody would think to look for me. And I could sit there and think all I wanted without anybody bothering me.

And Aunt Pat and I went into the bedroom, and we'd been sneezing all night long because of all the dust from all the furniture leaving. And all that was in the old bedroom that we shared was a mattress. And we pulled the mattress kind of over by the window where it used to be, and we're looking out the window, and talking about things that were out the window. And I said something about; Pat said something about, "I don't remember that tree being there."

And I said, "No, Grandpa... Dad planted that years later," and I said... We were talking about the neighbors across the street, and she was telling me all about neighbors growing up. And I said, "Remember when you and Linda TPed the trees?" And about that time, she looked down at the roll of toilet paper that we'd been carrying around, since that's the only thing we had, and we'd been sneezing, so we'd used a lot of toilet paper that night with all the dust in the house. And she decided to throw it at the tree to try to TP, and she threw it at the tree, but she forgot to hold the end of it. So now the only roll of toilet paper we had in the house for the whole night was up in the tree.

So we walked around outside, out the front door and around, and we looked at this toilet paper in the tree, and we decided since I was the smallest, I could climb up and get it. And I didn't have to climb too far, but I had to climb up and get this toilet paper out of the tree. We had to have it. It was late at night. Real late. And it was the only toilet paper we had, and we needed it for the bathroom.

So I climbed up the tree. And we're laughing and carrying on, and thinking of how stupid we are, and then we walk around to the front of the house... Oh! We sat across the street on a tree stump that she use to sit underneath the tree and read, she said, to get away from the noise, because Mark, Tim, and I were little and we were always making lots of noise, and she wanted peace and quiet. So she'd cross the street, and sit underneath the tree and read. So we sat over there for a while too.

Anyway, it came time to go back into the house, and walking up the side walk, and I said, "Just a minute." And about that time, I opened up my mouth and out came a fountain of margaritas. And I was really shocked. I didn't know I had it in me.

And my mom never drank a margarita again.

1109 Wilkinson is home to literal thousands of memories, and I'm sure that many of them will be featured on this blog. I would be lying if I said that posting about the place didn't give me a odd feeling of comfort. Sharing our stories is the closest any of us will ever get to going back there.