I haven't written a single thing since January!! I've been busy being a newlywed...Although I don't know really to whom I am apologizing. I'm not sure who really reads this blog religiously, but I'm sure there's someone out there. So I'm sorry already!
July 29th is my Grandmother's birthday. She's now 79 years young. She lives over on the other side of town by the Exxon-Mobil refinery(ies). She's been living in the same house that my Grandfather built for the past 37 years. My grandparents (Memaw and Papaw) moved into that pink-brick house after moving from the home my mother grew up in--a wood-frame house over natural gas lines that has since been torn down. Occasionally, in a fit of nostalgia, Mom will drive us by the site and say wistfully, "That's where our house used to be, and there's the tree my Daddy and I planted."
Papaw planted the plum and pear trees that are now in Memaw's backyard. The pear tree has always borne fruit since I can remember--big hard pears that were crunchy like apples and difficult to peel--but Memaw always struggled to get plums from the plum tree. This year she had her biggest yield ever: 10 plums. There's also a weeping willow tree where my Papaw built a swing for me. I was the first grandchild for my mother's parents, so I was Papaw's pride and joy until my brother Andy came along. Then we were both his pride and joy. My cousins weren't born until after his death in 1986.
I remember when my mother got the call that Papaw had passed away. She was very calm. He had been diagnosed with melanoma some time before. I don't remember when he got sick, or how long he endured chemotherapy, but I remember seeing him waste away. He changed so much that I remember being a little afraid of him. What was left of his hair fell out from the medicine, and Memaw asked me if I liked Papaw's hair and I said "No, but I still love Papaw." I think I was four or five years old.
After Papaw died, my brother and I were the only grandchildren for a couple of years until my cousin Madelen was born in 1988. Weekends at Memaw's were joyous. We would stay Friday night and wake up on Saturday morning to watch cartoons--Smurfs, He-Man, Thundercats, Garfield, Ghostbusters, etc., etc.--and eat the junky cereals that our parents wouldn't allow. I went through a Froot Loops and a Cookie Crisp phase, while Andy was pretty much steady on Lucky Charms for the longest time. Memaw would usually take us to the mall on Saturday afternoon where we would see a movie and she would buy us toys when we were younger and clothes once we got older. Memaw's house was AWESOME.
Memaw announced in the last week or so that the oil companies were making an offer to the people in her neighborhood. They would purchase homes from each resident at three times the value listed on the tax rolls. She was not contacted by the companies directly, but rather she saw an article in the newspaper and read documents on the internet. She decided to go ahead and take the offer, although she hadn't been asked yet. She said that it would be foolish not to, and she's right. She's already found a new house as well. She put down a small deposit to hold the house until she can pay for it in full with the cash she'll be getting, which I'm sure she plans to distribute, in part, among her grandkids and new great-grandson.
With any luck, someone will buy her house and move it from the concrete slab that it's on to a new location. If not, the purchasers will level it. That's it. Memaw's house is just...gone. All of the numberless memories of Christmastime and sleeping on the mattress in front of the TV and climbing trees and bedtime stories and junky cereal and playing with Papaw no longer have a place to be...they're just a concrete slab and some fruit trees.
Only memories in the aether of my mind's eye.
