Memory House
When I think about places from my memories that are full of life, I can't help but remember my aunt's house. It was a huge two story house, and we all gathered there for every holiday meal. I spent the majority of my childhood in that house while my mom and dad worked. I can remember hiding under the coffee table and watching Thundercats after school and playing under the stairs in my own little hideout. I remember the shelf full of books in the toy room that was my safe haven and how I begged my aunt to read The Value of Believing in Yourself: The Story of Louis Pasteur over and over again because it was my favorite. I remember sitting on my aunt's lap in the bathroom when she told me that my papaw had died, and sitting on the counter in the kitchen with a wash cloth wrapped around my mangled finger while my aunt called to let someone know we were going to the hospital. I remember live Christmas trees, wood paneling, and swinging in the porch swing on the "top porch," the covered porch that was attached to the second floor. I remember the pillow pet that waited on my bed in one of the many spare bedrooms and the hexagon terrarium in my aunt's bedroom that housed miniature cactus plants and tiny glass frogs. I remember the treasures that I found in the "rebate room," the 80s precursor to extreme couponing. Most of all, I remember the feeling of unconditional love that filled this place, and how, after my uncle built my aunt a new, smaller house and tore down the old one, family holiday dinners were never the same again.
- April Blevins
- April Blevins