The Secrets behind the keyhole

A peek through a keyhole

Shana stood at the door of the abandoned house. All the neighborhood children were told not to go there anymore because it was not safe. The wooden boards on the porch creaked underneath her feet, exposing their age. 

As she reached for the worn doorknob, her heart skipped a beat. No one had lived in the house since the 15-year-old's family moved to a home across the hill two years earlier. Initially, neighborhood kids ran in and out of the old house and played in the yard.

Once it was announced that the structure would be demolished, the warnings came, but Shanna could not stay away. She had spent the first eight years of her life in this old clapboard dwelling, and it was calling her one last time.

Shana bent down and peered through the keyhole of the locked front door, Her mind was about to unlock what a house key never could. It was dusk and as she opened through the hole, she could not physically see anything. But, with her mind's eye, she was about to revisit the past. Not long past but her own.

Shaune envishoned the roof that leaked into the kitchen, leaving a musty odor. She saw herself walking across leaning floors, which were the norm in her county neighborhood. She saw herself grandmothers radio on top of the refrigerator and could hear the Beatles sing I Wanna Hold Your Hand.

She could see herself as a three-year-old behind the curtain in the hallway underneath the stairs sitting on a bucket that Shana used until she was old enough to go to the outhouse to relieve herself.

She recalled the small living room that only a couch and a table could fit into. The television was on a stand that you could nto see if someone opened the front door wide.

Her mind replayed scenes in the downstairs bedroom she shared with her great-grandmother, Rena. The Christmas tree was placed in a corner of that room while she was sleeping, and she would wake to a floor full of toys.

Shana remembered it all as she looked through the keyhole, even though she could not see anything except darkne. The pictures were vivid in her mind. She saw the weathered couch where her mother and stepfather sat kissing when they were first engaged, oblivious that Shana, her two brothers, and her soon-to-be stepsister were running back and forth.

She recalled Easter Monday when she was seven and had run to the church with the other children for an egg hunt. She returned home gleeful as she showed her great-grandmother all the eggs and candy she had found.

Through the keyhole, Shana could see Grandma Rena in her gingham dress and white apron frowning at her because she had not permitted her to attend the Easter egg hunt.

Shana relived being as a five-year-old standing in the living room proudly showing Grandma Lisa the quarters, nickels, and dimes that had fallen between the cracks in the boards on the front porch. She retrieved the money when she crawled under the porch and felt she had found buried treasure.

As she walked home her heart was heavy and the following day the big blow came. Her Uncle Guy had unlocked the front door to make sure everything important was out of the house before it was destroyed. Shana walked inside with him in the light of day.

All that was left was a table in the living room, a cabinet in the kitchen, and an old trunk in the bedroom. After they went back outside and Uncle Guy locked the door for the final time, Shana looked through the keyhole again.

She saw vividly the last remnants of her past, and the smell of must and dust hit her nose. The fascination of the previous night was replaced with the reality she did not desire to acknowledge.

Shana trembled as tears began to fall, and she realized a part of her would die with each board and plank of the house when it was torn down. A few days later, there was nothing left but a pile of rubble.

No more house, front porch door, or keyhole to look through and bring back memories. Doors today no longer have keyholes, but Shana will treasure what was revealed when she looked through the one in her former home.

The experience revealed that although her previous life was impoverished, it was filled with treasures that wealth cannot purchase.