The house that I grew up in is growing old.
I can barely distinguish between the house and my grandfather, and both have given up. Tired..of people walking inside of them.
I used to fall in the house running around the hallway and through the kitchen and now I'm falling through the floor.
There is no one to say "Get out of my kitchen!"
I've never been in the attic and I've only seen my grandfather open the latch once; I'll never get to see what was stored. I thought Katherine's ornaments could be up there, but neither knew what had been done with them.
It broke my heart to see what I had seen. I wanted to have those memories again but not all the money in the world could buy them back.
The magic I had grown up with is dying. There is no more children to fall on the cinder under the fur shed and burn her forehead, or see snow for the first time. And after making snow *****, running hands through water and letting Katherine rub them through her bony hands. It doesn't snow in Louisiana but for this house it did.
I loved being old at such a young age. Picking blackberries with him and learning to preserve them. Staining my mouth, cheeks, hair, hands, my shirt with Mulberry. Then rolling dough on the counter and staining it with little girl hands and thin fingers and bear paws.
And still the only jelly I'll eat is blackberry jelly.
Cards at the table with Katherine was the best. She had this laugh. More of a cough and she wouldnt stop coughing until she caught her breath and then I would laugh so hard and try to walk it off and trip over her oxygen tubes. That machine used to haunt me. It looks with green eyes at night and stood in the open doorway of the door that I never understood why it was there, it never closed anyway. The doorway I used to hide in that one nightmare about the dinosaur that would chase me around the same hallways that my grandfather would. I've always loved dinosaurs after that.
And eating at the kitchen table where there was always honey because grandfather was also a beekeeper and loved honeycombs and fresh honey. The one flaw in that table was the window where I always thought raptors or a bobcat would jump out of while I was eating and eat ME. Tough little five year old me would put up a fight and scream until Paw would save me.
The dining room table where Granny Velgin always had pancakes. The BEST pancakes. Where I learned to make them years later along with paine perdu, or French toast. Little Cajun french me with my French name and father who was Czech but I have a Cajun French grandfather.
The magic that was the now 60 year old house is going. It was always "50 years old" every time I asked my grandfather how old it was. It was his childhood house too. He says he still remembers Granny chasing Ayo with a pan for staying out too late..and I still chase the Christmas lights we used to walk to see. I still chase my cousins around the backyard geese and chicken and duck pen. I'm still chasing the magic that sat in the attic of the house I never looked in.