the still and silent walls

I remember the sun high in the distant blue, my limbs extended skyward in expectation of its restorative light. But that was long ago now, not so much memory as flashing images of loss, the pain of its absence making me wonder why it still returns in the dark watches of night.

And yet I remember basking naked in the light, worshiping our great mother with my brothers and sisters, her warmth penetrating to the marrow of my being.

But the memory of her rays is no more now than dappled bits of light refracted by the old home's windows, scattering and scampering across our silent walls. I no longer raise my arms to greet mother sun.

I no longer have arms to raise.

I remember decades later when people still visited our mistress's little home, whole families tumbling out of station wagons, the little children crushed in the grip of their grandparent's arms.

But those children grew to adulthood and eventually the visits slowed till only the sons and daughter of our mistress came to care for their old mother.

How many times have I heard someone visiting say “If these walls could only talk.” But though we listen, we cannot speak. We remember all the way to the beginning and beyond, our bared arms still waving in the wind, the glossy sun warming us down to our deep roots.

And we are reminded too of a later time when we reeked of fresh varnish glistening upon the planking of our floors and paint lightening our walls.

We remember the sweltering heat of forgotten summer nights, a tear appearing on the cheek of the youngest son of our mistress as he remembered when the former home where he was born was torn down and replaced by our sturdy walls.

The ghosts of that earlier home sometimes whisper, but only we ever hear them.

How many families had those walls sheltered over the decades while they still stood? How many lives had they silently witnessed and loved before hard men came with long handled sledgehammers and knocked them to the ground?

If those walls could only talk, what a tale they might tell.

“Daddy was laid off the year they built it,” her youngest said that unhappy day. And yet they found a way to pay for it, their ownership a testament of something more than the magic animating our silent walls. We were a vision that burned wakefully in her heart through long years of hot and humid nights, its realization ennobling the dreamer with a dignity that families born wealthy can never fully experience or understand.

But she remembered a different, older home that sad day. "Where ya goin’ Mama?” her son had asked her in alarm. The old woman stood at the end of the porch and answered him with a breathless complaint.

“I’m goin’ home.”

Searching for something unseen she felt deep in her bones, she gazed intently at the road where it dipped and turned before disappearing under the darkened railroad trestle, the sensation of it more real than the familiar concrete beneath her soles and yet somehow buried in the tangled periphery of her memory. “Goin’ home,” she growled, her head jerking defiantly downward.

Staring at the shadow beneath the railroad trestle where it turned and disappeared into the past, she imagined the old man walking home with an easy stride, a line of sweat beading across his forehead beneath the brim of his narrow hat.

How many times have we witnessed her with hand cupped above her eyes, gazing longingly into the past? She can almost see the sinewy musculature of his shoulders and the slow deliberate swing of his lanky arms.

But the vision is not powerful enough to restore him to life, the street as empty as the sound of his body slowly skidding across the upholstery in the taxi where they sat together for the last time, his head coming to its final, peaceful rest on her shoulder.

As her youngest placed his arm carefully around her, the old woman’s eyes sparkled with astonishment, her voice rising in sudden alarm, “Whaddam I doin’ out here?”

But he coaxed her back inside, the old woman looking nervously about the room as the brightness in her eyes began to dull, the ghostly image of her husband walking down Young Street fading, the sitting room’s familiar furniture shifting strangely out of place, the sensation of it making her uneasy in her mind.

The solitude of the last few years had uncovered a hurt she had not realized still existed, reviving an inarticulate longing for the deep past and with it the desire to return to the joys of her childhood.

How many times had we attempted to comfort her in her grief and loneliness? How many times did we reach out our absent arms? But the magic of our creation had begun to fade even before the old man died. Those moments when she remembered the miracle of our little brick house and stared longingly at our walls grew fewer and fewer till they hardly ever happened at all.

After that day, she never remembered us again.

That was the day she first ran away, wandering in search of the remembered home of her youth. After it happened one too many times and the police were finally called to find her, her daughter came to help her pack her things and took her away from us.

The little brick house finally empty, the next few months were lonely and silent, the remembered echo of her voice rising and falling, but without restoring her to our waiting, invisible arms. We remembered how she would pause in a room as if listening for the old man. Worst of all, we remembered how she longed to leave us and return to the home of her youth.

We knew then that she would not return. In late spring a For Sale sign was pounded into the front yard, people visiting in ones and twos to inspect the house. Her daughter came several times to supervise the removal of furniture, framed pictures and assorted knick knacks. The furnishings with sentimental value were divided among her remaining children and the rest was sold or taken to the dump.

Her eldest son was the last of her family to enter our door and pay his respects to our mistress' memory. Although he had already left home before we were built, it was more difficult than words could convey for him to say goodbye to the little house the old woman had fervently worked to create.

A practical man, he did not linger. We believed that one day he would regret that he had not stayed long enough to grieve our loss, and perhaps he did.

The door closing softly, the sound of his shoe leather snapped on the concrete as he briskly crossed the porch before pausing at its end for a brief backward glance. Moments later his car engine roared to life, the tires grinding atop the stony drive for the last time as it backed out onto the road.

In the end her children did not love us enough to keep our home. But we shall be her final epitaph. Maybe they will remember us only because they wish to remember her. But they will remember us, nonetheless.

One day we shall suffer the same fate as the clapboard shack that preceded us. Thirty years after her death the luster and magic that endeared our walls to the old woman and her family have long passed. But even now, it will take more than mere men with sledgehammers to level our brick and timber skin. We were built with love and love is never easily brought low.

We will not forget the woman whose dream brought us to life. We will outlive her children and grandchildren and maybe even great grandchildren. Are we not her children as much as they? When we are all that remains of her memory, who will honor the old woman after those who knew her have passed from the earth?

Where does the soul of the hero journey when her story has ended, to what new countries ventured and to what strange people brought greeting? When the memory of her expressive face and spirited voice begin to fade and crack with time who will carry word of her back to the land of the living? Who might we send to navigate that rough and dangerous road and not be lost to us as well? Who shall bear witness to her life when none who knew and loved her remain?

“We shall,” we answer together, “we who sheltered her from the rain and the wind and the breathless heat of our mother the sun. Though still and silent, yet we shall bear witness."