The House on 65th

Three gold cylinders faced me as I walked through the oversized front door. The once-fashionable doorbell that faithfully rang since 1977. 

The coat closet to my left looked just as it did the day we left, New Years Eve, 1990. I spotted the same flower shaped brass knobs on the linen closet down the hallway. My bedroom door on my immediate left was the same dark brown door, but I wasn’t sure I could go in just yet. I wondered if the back of the door was still covered in old sticker glue.

A few more steps in and my mother’s bedroom door came into view. As my heartbeat sped up, the baby gave me small kick. I put my hand on my belly as my kids and nieces ran past me into the house. I didn’t know if I was ready to go back to the house on 65th, but it was too late to turn back. 

I stood a moment, looking into my mother’s room. Oh Mom, I remember you so clearly.

The smell of Craven M wafts into my room and creeps into my dream. It pulls at me gently, signaling that Mommy is awake. She is still there. I am in her giant queen-size bed. I made it through another night and she is still here. It is time to get up.

Mom’s door opens to face the top of the open, spiral staircase, which is to the right of the living room and kitchen. Mom calls it an ‘open concept’ which means that we can see eachother most of the time when we are on the main floor.

I glance down the stairs as I scurry past them, just in case there’s demon, or a ghost. My sister says someone died making our house. Never walk too close to the rails.

It’s not fully light out, and the hanging tiffany lamp is on, casting a soft rainbow glow. Mom is sitting on the orange and brown floral chesterfield that rests between the other side of the staircase and end of the kitchen cupboards. She sits there so often there’s a permanent dent in the couch. She got the chesterfield and matching rocking chair when she got married in 1963.

The TV is on. Mom’s watching a morning news show on Channel 2&7. She takes a sip of her coffee and places it back on the counter next to the orange phone. She looks tired. She was up most of the night, smoking, pacing, worrying. I stayed up too, to make sure she didn’t leave. 

The countertop with the phone is not really part of the kitchen. It has three cupboards above and three below. They are very full with stacks of paper, old letters, pens and books. I know if I open one of the top cupboards something will fall on my head. 

There are three drawers above each of the bottom cupboards; the kids junk drawers. Mine is last, on the far right. Just as I am the last child. My drawer is full of stickers, smelly erasers, doll shoes, school valentines, my beloved membership letter from the CUCUMBER Club (Children’s Underground Club from United Moose and Beaver for Enthusiastic Reporters), and my response from the Vatican when I wrote to Pope John Paul, asking him to let me be an alter server. I will clean up my drawer one day.

I sit down at the long table with two benches on either side. Mom slowly gets up and changes the channel to the Mighty Hercules. She is limping slightly as she moves around the kitchen. She brings me a bowl of Honey and Graham Quaker Oatmeal, sits back down and lights another cigarette.

“Hey P, come and see what they did to the main bathroom,” my sister said and waved me down the hall to my left. I walk over to see that the entire bathtub had been replaced with a much smaller one. Odd. “And did you see the staircase? It’s awful, they replaced it with a smaller one.” 

I walked down the hallway and faced the kitchen, my back to mom’s room. My three daughters ran around the sunken living room, marvelling at the sheer enormity of the bungalow I grew up in. 2500 square feet on each floor, with a walkout basement, certainly did feel large next to our 1800 square foot two-story.

The realtor looked up from her papers. “Well, it needs a new roof, and probably a new AC unit. It’s original to the house. Plus, there’s some renovations in the basement that would need fixing. The original sauna is still here,” she looked up at me and smiled. “Think you’d ever want to buy it back?”

I paused for a second, imagining the life my kids might have here. Was the basement still haunted? Would they feel closer to mom? Would I feel closer to mom? How would family movie night look? Would the dog enjoy the two-level yard?

“No,” I said quietly. “The part that I loved is gone.”

Goodbye, Mom.

The Rock in the Road

I was 19 years old when I set out for Ireland by myself.

Before cellphones, with no credit card, and very little idea of what lay ahead, I boarded an Air Canada flight to Dublin. I arrived with a backpack of Clif bars to keep me alive for a month, clothes for a week, a sleep-sack and a Frommer's Guidebook, 1995 edition. The only plan I had made was meeting my Grandmother's best friend's sister at the airport, and using her Dublin home as a home-base.

After spending a few days in Dublin, I set out for the countryside. The buses were fantastic and allowed me to easily fly by the seat of my pants. I met a group of other young travelers a hostel in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Frank, from Holland, Naget, from the US, Florence, from France, and Sigma, from Germany. They had been traveling together for a few days and had set out a plan for the coming week. Why not?

Together we visited Bushmills, the Giant's Causeway, the Cliffs of Moher. Then came Carrick-a-Rede, a rope bridge. I lazily followed them onto a bus and read the Thorn Birds as we rode through the winding roads to the Info Centre. We all visited the loo and headed over to the bridge gate. I opened my pamphlet and thumbed through as we walked.

The bridge was built in 1755 to connect salmon fishermen to the rocky island of Carrick-a-Rede, Scottish-Gaelic for 'The Rock in the Road'. The road they reference was the migrating path of Atlantic salmon. This bridge removed the need to access the island by boat and allowed fishermen to catch up to 300 fish per day, right up until the 1960s. Interesting! The photos were very scenic, but... wait, did that say suspended above a 30 metre deep and 20 metre wide chasm? I looked up from the pamphlet as we approached the bridge. I ate my heart.

"I can't." I said to Frank, who was ahead of me at the back of the line. The other three clambered ahead, excitedly going one by one over the swaying rope bridge as the water below crashed against the island. I was as still as the giant rock that lay ahead.

"You can. I'll be right in front of you."

I felt like I'd fallen on my stomach at the playground. I couldn't catch my breath. I had never felt fear in that way before. I looked at my travel companions, halfway across the bridge, waving and calling to me. Island on the other side was the most majestic thing I'd ever seen. Crossing the bridge would be the hardest thing I'd ever done.

My head buzzed as thoughts galloped through, pulling me in each direction. I thought of my mother. If I died on the bridge, she wouldn't even know where I was. I hadn't talked to her in two nights. I thought of my dogs and how sweet their greeting would be when I arrived home. I thought of the many tourists who had made it across. Smiling and climbing the giant rock.

Frank's face became clear, trying to coax me onto the bridge. He was kind and patient, and yet I'd just met him. Could I trust him? He told me he was heading over the bridge. Was I going too? I would put all my trust in this one man to support me while I overcame the greatest fear I'd ever faced head on.

The first steps were slow and difficult. I could hear the waves crashing, Frank's calm voice coaching me forward, the cheers from the island from Florence, Sigma and Naget. As we moved across the 20 metres, I felt more confident. I listened closer to Frank's voice.

With each step, I felt my confidence surge. I was half way there. I suddenly knew that I could do this. Frank's voice faded and suddenly I realized that the voice that I was hearing was my own. You can do this, you can face this, you can cross the bridge.

We joined the others, and sat for a long time on the island, watching the wild sea crash. At first we talked, but slowly the talking became sighs and we each retreated to a contented quiet. I was thinking of the 400 years this island was used by people before us. It held many stories. It felt as though if we listened close enough, the grass would whisper their secrets, breathing their life back to us. Making us feel alite with new energy, as we each stood on the precipice of our own lives, about to unfold.

When we walked back over the bridge, I didn't feel the surge of fear. I took solace in the sound of the waves, no longer angrily crashing. Sigma called to me and Frank and took a photo as we crossed. He sent it to me a month later, with a note that said, “So you never forget how courageous you are.”

Carrick-a-Rede was closed during the Covid19 pandemic, and the National Trust of Ireland chose to do much needed restoration. We plan to take the kids to Ireland, part of their heritage, in a few years.

Though bridge they cross will not be exactly the same bridge I crossed, the island will have seen 30 more years, I hope they too will cross the bridge and hear the whispers as they go forth into their own lives.