Memories

In my memory they live there still in the century old yellow-sided house bordered by well-tended flower beds nestled beside the rail road tracks. I remember the narrow winding green carpeted stair that creaked a complaint when you walked over the uneven steps, the cramped upstairs bedrooms with sloped ceilings, the dark-panelled living room with black moulded wood stove, long tan couch, and Grandpa and Grandma's particular chairs. There is a sliding door that leads out onto the deck and beside it is a shelf of treasured books.

Grandpa must be watering the plants in his greenhouse, and I suppose Grandma is in the kitchen preparing the noon meal. Or perhaps it is Sunday and a pot of Grandpa's famous soup simmers on the stove and Grandpa is reading a novel while Grandma relaxes with a copy of Woman's World.

I still feel we could visit them some Sunday afternoon after church. That we could eat a meal of Grandma's hamburger noodlebake with manderin orange salad and that I could sit on the couch beside my sisters and suck on a Werther's Original candy while reading about how "The Good Old Days They Were Terrible" or how "Kids Still Say the Darnedest things" listening to the conversation.

Nevermind that the old house now has other occupants and that Grandpa and Grandma had moved somewhere less memorable for their final years. I am no longer the child who delighted in a March break spent with my grandparents or who would ask for one more Werther's Original.  Nevermind that Grandpa and Grandma themselves are no longer living, Grandma having succumbed to a cancer and Grandpa following soon afterwards after caring for her so tenderly.

Because in my memory they live on in an old house surrounded by gardens just outside of the settlement of Corinth.