Rosebud

As a child, I remember walking around my grandfather's land looking at the fallen walls of an old house and the place where a chimney once stood. My father would tell me that he had lived in that house when he was young, but it was hard to imagine a time in which the house stood upright. I asked him if a tornado hit it, but, "no, it was just old and fell."

Today, the Salvation Army took a truck load of odds and ends, the last remaining salvageable items from my father's house. Four investors came to look at the house and make offers. His fallen down place.

There is something about losing a parent that has made me feel like my childhood is completely over. I've been an adult for a long time, married with my own children, but there is a finality that I had not experienced before. All the memories that could ever be made are done. That's it. There will be no more new memories of my dad.

All the ones that I have are all the ones that I will ever have. And you hope that you spent enough time together, that you listened well, and asked all the questions you needed to ask--because there's no more answers either.

I walked around this old house while the movie of my childhood played in my mind. I stared at the cracks in the tiled floor and saw myself playing hopscotch across them. The tree house I once climbed in is now a stump in the yard. Everything smaller and insignificant, old and dilapidated. I wanted to explain to the investors that it was once a great place to live, but they don't care. They want a quick, cheap, fixer-upper.

I left the house and went down to the neighborhood park two houses away. The walk there was shorter than I remembered. All the houses in the neighborhood, all those kids I played with have grown and moved away. The fairytale playground equipment has been replaced with giant industrial playscapes, all bright and shiny. Cinderella's coach, the Old Lady in the Shoe's shoe--oh, and Little Miss Muffet's spider--are gone.

The house has been in a steady decline for a long time--years even. I asked him to move here, but "no, he was fine" that sort of thing. But it doesn't matter anyway. He would still be gone even if the house looked as new as the day he bought it. Time passes whether you notice or not.

Everything has changed. Changed places. Changed hands. The land I went to as a child now belongs to me, and one day, (sooner than I want to imagine), it will belong to Rowan and Evelyn.


These are some memories of my dad that I put together:

My Dad from Leigh on Vimeo.