Memories of Home

You see that hill right there? The one with the patch of dead grass at the top? I remember sliding down that hill on my 8th birthday. It had been an extra snowy winter, and I was one of those unlucky kids whose birthday fell smack dab in the middle of January. But I loved it that day because that day was the first time I had gotten all my friends together for a sledding party. She’d bought McDonald's and set up everything atop the hillside, it was perfect, even if none of the friends I knew from school showed up. But, that was okay because I had three sisters who were always there. It was a great idea on my mom’s part, and I loved her for it. Not so much when my sled flew out from beneath me and sent me flying barebacked down the steep slope.

You see that empty store in that 1990’s shopping center? It doesn’t look like much now, but when I was little I probably spent every other weekend there. Not for any particularly fun reason, no this was because that’s where the emergency clinic used to be, and I was always in need of a fix-up. Everything from the time I broke my leg at a wrestling tournament, to the instance when my mom yelled at me for playing over my dad’s tools in the garage. She told me to go play outside because I was going to hurt myself swinging through the rafters. Turned out she should have been more worried about the backyard because I ran out there and almost immediately thrust a nail right through my foot.

The electrical box on the side of the road distinctly reads “Do Not Sit”. That is where we used to sit when we needed a break from home, or if we were waiting for Bubba to come and pick us up from school. It is also where I met my best friend growing up, William. In fact, we made a pact to be friends forever. It’s been years now, I wonder how he’s doing…

That new development with all those pretty houses up the street, yeah that was an open field once. When I was nine I got mad at my parents and decided I was going to run away. But, I was worried someone was going to find me so I made a break for it through that field to the mountains behind. Yeah, the mind of a nine-year-old, I know. I found a pretty place with a graffitied up rock just on the other side of the mountain road. Cooled down there for a few hours and just before dark, I got scared. I snuck back into my window the way I had come if my parents knew anything about my little adventure they never mentioned it.

That house with all the beautiful landscaping? Yeah, it didn’t look like that. I remember spending every summer there learning how to fix one thing or another. The house flooded twice, and we never had the money to fix it professionally. Next best thing? Four kids each learning how to work a hammer. We were close back then, I miss it.

That abandoned building out on the corner? That used to be our church, or at least the one Bubba and Grandma took us to. I learned how to drive in that uneven parking lot, and even arguably saved my cousin's life when we were all riding in the back of Bubba’s old truck. Christian thought he was tough stuff and tried to ride the bumps of the bed while standing up. His balance wasn’t great and when Bubba turned Christian went tail-first over the side. I hadn’t known what I was doing, I just did the first thing that came to mind, which was to yank hard on the rope Bubba had told all of us to hold on to. Christian sprang back over the side like a slinky standing back up. The look on his face was priceless, but there was not a scratch on him.

The white rooms in that hospital… I hate that place. I remember the day Dad picked us up from school. I knew something was wrong because Dad never came to our school. “We have to go. Something happened. Bubba is in the hospital.” The look on his face was enough to make me ill. I remember it well. I also remember the quiet drive to the hospital. I wasn’t so much that no one was talking, but this silence was heavy, almost painful. I remember walking out of the elevator, and all my sister ran down the hall like getting there faster would somehow change was what would happen. My dad didn’t run, no. When I turned to meet his eyes I could see the tears waiting there. He knelt down beside me and I’ll never forget what he said. “Allie, I need you to be strong for your sisters. You can’t cry, because I need you to be strong for them. Can you do that for me?” I promised. I promised because I could see it, he needed me to be strong, because he knew he couldn’t be.

You see that garden growing outside Bubba’s house? That’s the first place he went when the doctors sent him home. “We’ve done all we can.” They said. “It’s just a matter of time.” They said. They were wrong, or they didn’t know Bubba. It’s been fifteen years this year, and every year I look at that little garden and thank it because for some reason the doctors can’t explain Bubba still works it every day.

You asked me what my hometown meant to me. My home town is the perfect collection of every painful, anxious, and wonderful memory I have ever made. It is the place where our home burned to the ground when I was sixteen, but it is also the place that a miracle saved my Bubba. My home town is the place where I cried under the trees alone in the darkness of night, but it is also where my little sister and I hid in a makeshift fort for hours laughing. My home town is everything that has made me, me. And, I love it.