I sucked in a quick breath as my heart seemed to stop just for a second.
The glow of the computer screen hit my face as it felt like my temperature was steadily rising.
It can’t be, I thought to myself as I stared deep into the flat screen.
A photograph of my childhood home in rural Monticello flashed before my eyes as I scanned my mouse over the image.
For Sale. Foreclosure.
The former home of my grandparents was on the real estate market for a fraction of what I thought it was worth. I had stumbled across the listing while searching for an endless amount of trivial “did-you-know” facts on the internet that morning.
A smile slowly came across my face as I read over its listing. Built in 1973, brick, three bedroom, two bath, patio, single-family home.
I grew up in that home until I was about seven years old. From then, I would spend every other weekend and the entire summer under that roof.
It was my Maw Maw and Paw Paw’s house, complete with a framed-in back patio, linoleum flooring, a few ghosts and a lot of dents in the wall courtesy of me.
Closing my eyes, I could still walk its halls. I knew every corner, crack. The floorplan was embedded in my mind.
The side screen door led you into the kitchen, complete with a “buffet and deck.” It had three swinging chairs pulled up the counter, brown “pleather” with foot props at the bottom.
To your left was the formal living room. That was a room I was forbidden to enter. It was for company and for Maw Maw to show off her antique furniture. Later in my life, the room would be transformed into Paw Paw’s room when he got really sick. Amidst the red velvet plantation house couches were bed pans, a hospital bed and a tower of medicine bottles.
On the other side of the kitchen was the den, which held many car races, hide and seek games, coloring contests and Saturday morning cartoon viewings for me. It was in that room that I learned how to tie my shoelaces. I learned how to read and write. I learned how to share. I learned how to be a kid in my own little world.
Then it was down the long hallway that frightened me as a child. It always felt like someone was behind you. I would often run down the hall as fast as an Olympic runner, too scared to look behind me.
Down that hall were the bedrooms and bathrooms. Those were the rooms filled with slumber parties, bathtub pirate battles, hair-braiding sessions and Paw Paw’s war stories.
Opening my eyes, I looked at the listing with the hopes of returning to my childhood home via my computer. There were photographs listed, and I became excited to see what it looked like today.
After a few minutes, the smile on my face disappeared.
The beautiful rose bushes my Paw Paw planted were gone. The flag pole that held a new flag every year wasn’t there anymore. The red barn in the backyard was nowhere to be seen.
Glancing over the images of the inside, I found myself still.
Paw Paw’s old room looked dark with seedy curtains and a warped ceiling fan.
Maw Maw’s bathroom had been modernized. Gone were the formica counters and pea-green toilet. The wallpaper had been stripped. And the door frame that held my height measurements had been painted over.
I exited out of the computer screen. I did not know what the kitchen looked like or even that dreary, haunting hallway.
Everything was different. It didn’t feel the same.
My childhood home wasn’t a home anymore. It was an empty, cold shell. It was waiting for a new life.
I then realized that it really wasn’t the brick and mortar that made that place so special. It was what went on inside those walls.
And you can’t go back there. That’s just reality.
But gazing over those photographs reminded me of the family, our family, that made it home for all those years.
I left tiny imperfections to serve as reminders that we were there. My height measurements, my name carved in the patio, the marks on the tree from my tire swing.
I can only wonder if anyone noticed it.
Cleaning my own house recently, I uncovered something it my son’s room that I never noticed before. Carved into his closet door was the name of a child...Luke.
Smiling, I left it alone. Little Luke wanted someone to know he had been there.
And now he will be there forever.
