Our House

December 7, 2006
Thursday 2:42 PM CST

Gary, my brother, has just called to tell me that he and Karen will be here in about an hour and a half. I felt pretty sure they would be back this afternoon, so I have my stuff loaded in the car, ready to go home and see my own four-legged children and the man I love whose been feeding and appeasing them for a couple of days while I’ve sat with Gary and Karen’s four-legged babies, Sadie and Bonray.

I cried a little bit when it got time to leave just now. Not because I don't want to go home, but because I’ve put it off since I got here on Tuesday. The cry, I mean. The past two days have been my first time alone in this house in a long while, and I used to stay here alone (with the babies, of course) often.

Before I leave this home, one first opened up to me in 2001, I had to sit down and write. This very moment, I’m perched in the same chair I used to sit in, hunched over a-just-my-size-kitchen-bar, where I once wore out erasers on fifteen various No. 2 pencils I perpetually lined up, first sharpened on the pencil sharpener my brother had screwed into a wall of his garage for me; before hitting the hour long two lane highway waiting on me, I had to sit once again, sans pointy pencils, three page equations, and ten Spanish verbs, finally, conjugated, memorized and shortly, forgotten.

When I enrolled in Texas Tech University in the fall of 2001, Gary and Karen offered me a place to stay during the week while I attended classes. Their home in Brownfield is less than forty miles from Lubbock, while mine is about one ten.

There's a lot of history here in this house I once visited more than my own. It became our house. I was part of Sadie and Bonray's family. I'm Auntie to them like I am to Kayla.

When the Twin Towers burst into a death sentence for countless lives and untold future decisions, I was in an early morning Algebra class. After the class was over, I overheard a young guy who was sprawled out in the buffed tile hallway, waiting his turn for math punishment, I heard him say to the girl next to him, "They," he said, lifting his brow and cocking his head toward the file of wanna be mathematicians, "don’t know yet.”

I didn’t give his statement much thought (though now, I'll never forget his words), and walked marathon miles to the parking lot, got into my truck, a truck that once belonged to Aaron, and behind the steering wheel, books to my right side, I kept my head down, hunched over some book for the next hour while much of America riveted. It wasn’t until my 12:30 British Lit class that I learned of the morning's surreal events. The attacks of terror.

When I got home to Brownfield that evening, Karen was in the den. She’d been home ill from work and had remained parked before the jet and mortar images on a Sanyo screen all day. We looked at each other for a full minute, then quietly sat together in disbelief, in horror really, watched and listened, numbed. Later, we forecasted and conjured. We grew into generals with clear plans, then went to bed and woke up with the same disbelief in the reality of it all.

From the vantage point of Gary and Karen’s house, I watched as our nation united. I listened to a determined Commander In Chief. I studied God’s Word in a novel way. I fought with tests from school, tests from home. I waited for Recruit Austin’s letters from San Diego, and then from here, I flew to witness my son graduate from USMC Boot Camp on 18 Jan 2002. I bid my son farewell as he left for war, and here I fell apart on the Day from Hell. Day five of the war, the day when our first soldiers were captured and paraded on TV.

Since that time, I’ve been with Aaron here in my brother’s back yard, swimming, dancing, laughing. Gary and Karen loved it when Aaron was home on leave. Together, Aaron and I would always spend a day or two here with them. Christmases too, with Aaron and the rest of the family, here at our home away from home.

It was here Aaron told me, “Mom, I’ve got about five things I want to confess in my life. I’m going to tell you three tonight.”

No. Don’t ask.

I’ve worried and prayed a lot from this spot I’m about to depart.

The wind chimes here sing in a deeper tone than mine. Still, beautiful in a lonely sort of way.

It saddens me to see the gray in Sadie’s and Bonray’s muzzle. But it’s been good being here. Alone for the first time in this house since I lost Aaron.

Different concerns now, prayers rearranged somewhat.

Perhaps it’s the day. Pearl Harbor. Their 9/11.

I don’t know why Aaron had to leave. I’m just glad he was here.