Photographs and Memories

I went to the house in Jaffray this morning: stepped back in time.

The iron gate, that Michael said he made for me, was wide open and held firmly in place by the tall grass that hasn’t been cut since I left for Oman at the end of August, 2004. And the garage doors were open, putting on display the array of tools, toys and trophies that Michael has crammed in there.

It feels deserted, this place: once so full of life. The kids are gone. I am gone. Michael is gone, most of the time anyway. I felt like the only life in the house was the cat.

I squeezed through the garage to the back yard. Michael had laid some big stones just outside the back door. They were huge: he must have struggled to get them there and then place them in just the right spot to make perfect steps out into the yard. “Who would walk on them?” I wondered aloud to the cat, and really,“Why?”: the back yard was overgrown and uninviting.

Michael is driven to build things big and solid: as though that will be the end of it. I never understand his drive to create beautiful things and then desert them. He did it with this house, our family and he did it with our life together.

I feed the cat and wander from room to room: as the past comes alive. Not a lot has changed in six years, but there are little things. The peppershaker I took with me last time has been replaced. The house is slowly evolving and becoming more and more his place: chasing my memory away. But pictures still keep the past alive.

The painting my parents gave us as a wedding present fills the wall behind the piano, and along side it is a copper relief my mom created just after Jackie was born, more than 50 years ago. She has another painting just inside the door. A landscape painted on a piece of shale sits on the bookshelf and a five generation picture: grandma Bower, Lois, Michael, Monte and Adam is on the china cabinet.

There is an array of snap shots by the phone: the kids when they were young, grandma Bower on her 92^nd birthday, Adam and Monte, shots of friends, and relatives. I had put many of these up before I left. Shots of me are now blank spaces on the board.

There are grad pictures of five boys: three of ours and two exchange students. The boys, as children, are everywhere.

I make my way downstairs into Gabriel’s old room and find boxes and shelves full of old albums and memories. A small brown one tells the story of when Mary, Kymee, Brad and I hiked the West Coast Trail: 70 miles along the most rugged and beautiful coast line in the world. Another is full of memories of my first trip to China. Another is of Mike and I in Bali and Mexico.

There are year books and formal family portraits that belong to my brother: given to me when his wife left. Newspaper clippings of John’s lost child, obituaries and an article of the crash that killed Mike’s cousin.

My life is here.. black and white pictures of my parents, whole albums from my teen years. Lots of pictures of the kids growing up: our travels to the Yukon, camping: living. There are baby books, grandparent books, graduation albums.

I discover a binder that has all our Christmas cards: I sit and reread the small books the kids helped create, filled with information about our year: Our Adventure, A Year at Our Place. There are newsletters and cards with sparkles.

Neglect keeps the house empty these days, except for that cat, but it is alive with ghosts and memories.

I am thankful I don’t live there anymore. But, I am also just a little bit glad it is still there.

To visit.

To travel back in time and remember.