The House on Rollins Avenue

now playing: Home by Ben Rector

On the top of the hill sits two small houses. The house on the right has a home-made swing that is worn from the many years I sat under the shade of the tree. The house on the left is the one closest to my heart. Inside, my grandmother is making a roast for dinner and writing letters of prayer to sweet friends, my grandfather is in the shed making candle holders that will sit in my home when I have a family of my own. If the walls inside could speak they would tell the story of my childhood and all the memories that are kept here.

They would talk of the little back bedroom and how it was a world all in itself, and of the computer room where I spent my preteen years. and the kitchen. where I made cards for the people at the nursing home. where I swapped grins behind the sunday funnies at breakfast. and where, at night when all was calm, Grandpa and I would share a dance for hours. I cling to those times. I cling to the way my grandmother smells and the way my grandpa hums tunes of nothing.

"Hello?"... I hear a faint reply coming from the back bedroom. I smile and take off my shoes as my grandmother greets me with a hug. My grandfather rushes to see me sitting in his favorite chair. He never has kicked me out of that chair. It's as if it is our chair and with it, we share an unspoken bond. The welcome scene has always been the same and it always will be, I believe.

There are some things that will always be the same, the welcome scene included. You can always count on Uncle Jeff being late for dinner, the tv will perminately be set on the golf channel, and there will always be rasberry tea with every meal. At dinner we will take eachother's hands like we have for so many years and we will bless the food and the people eating it. and at the end my grandfather says, "and bless my beautiful wife." the most perfect way, I think, to end a prayer.

I could go on for hours about this house and the people that gather inside at thanksgiving and christmas. I could write a book about every single room, and still have words to say after. I would talk about the books on the shelf and how they were books that taught me to read. and I could talk about the fire place and how it was my own personal stage when I was a rock star and how it seemed to be a death sentence when Sarah Beth was born. I would talk about the tree house out back and how I would eat fried bologne sandwhiches with the neighborhood kids and make believe till dark.

This place is home for me.  there is something in the way that my grandpa's chair forms to my body and the way that the smell alone in this house is enough to send me back in time. everything about it calls out to me like a lighthouse on a hill. when i am lost, it calls me back to shore. I know the day will come when I am away at college and I will long to be here. I will wish to be with my family sitting around a table, sharing the parts of our lives that we have missed out on. and as I sit in my dorm room, I will remember the way my grandmother's heart is a mirror for my own, and how my grandfather is sitting in our chair waiting for my return. one day, I will drive through the little town, pass the primary school, drive by the ball field and end on the top of a hill where two little houses sit. I will turn left and my heart will know that I am home.