Beauty In Disguise
My parents had both passed and I felt orphaned, alone --
Although I was married and lived hours away with a family of my own.
And today was a day I had dreaded for months
Silently traveling the green miles leading to my childhood home.
Time to clear out the house, and put "some lipstick on the pig."
As we pulled up my husband just groaned
"Lawn's shaggy, paint's peeling, one shutter is gone . . ."
His voice faded out as my thirsty heart drank this portrait of home.
Suddenly, I was five again. The grass was being cut by my dad using a mechanical push mower. It was high from all the rain that week -- bad for him but good for me as my bare feet enthusiastically stomped through every lukewarm puddle left on the driveway.
He'd cheer up from one of the mud pies I fashioned
And baked on the scalding blacktop in the afternoon heat
While I played "statue" on the front lawn
Trying to stay perfectly still in a pose that would convince passing traffic I was lawn art.
"C'mon, let's get this over with."
My husband's sweet invitation to enter the house brought me back quickly to the task at hand.
The peeling paint let patches of long dated color show through,
all the way back to the fire-engine red I picked myself.
The door crashed to the floor as the last hinge gave way and my husband muttered an expletive, but I didn't hear it.
I was already turning around in front of the ornate gold- framed mirror in the hallway.
Each turn a different look --Homecoming, Prom, Wedding --
no occasion was complete without a once-over in the mirror.
I followed my husband down the hall to the den, he noticed the stench of old cigars and bourbon.
I, however, heard my dad screaming at the TV, reading the Sunday paper, and telling a giggly me, hiding behind the curtains in my best Nancy Drew impression, that he did it with a candlestick in the library.
Silly daddy! We don't have a library!
Then he would laugh; deep, hearty laughter worthy of an ancient god.
Smiling, I stepped into the kitchen. Linoleum worn at the stove and at the sink, since momma spent most hours there.
Her huge apron collection hung limply on pegs along the wall.
Funny how I always thought they were so bright and lively and fun, but without her, they were just rags.
The table was set for four -- not because four were coming but because there was always room if they did.
I was in my head smelling momma's chicken and crust
And trying not to smell her creamed corn -- which I detested.
My brother would grab a spoonful from my plate when my parents weren't looking making us chuckle,
and his attempt not to sent creamy corn shooting out his nose.
I was quietly laughing with tears streaming down my face.
My husband walked up, wrapped his arms around me, and told me he knew it was hard.
He said the house was old and ugly, wallpaper everywhere
(The pink roses in my old room I picked out when I was 10.)
"Every floor, every wall, the roof, the foundation; all need to be replaced or repaired.
I suggest we just demolish it and get rid of this ugly eyesore before the city does it for us."
I looked at him with the last droplets of moisture still clinging to my eyes.
"Demolish it, honey. But know that this, right here, will always be the most beautiful palace on earth."
"But, having married a prince from another town, I was happy to move, and still am.
I pray that the prince and princess we have raised will always feel the same about their "home" castle.
Because it's not the condition of the lawn, the sagging doors or outdated wallpaper that make a house a home -- they are but a disguise.
It is the quality of the love that holds a home together that is the real beauty contained in any four walls, my love."
1/5/2017
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