Come Back Home

I am home now taking care of mama's house.  She stepped out for a while.  She will be back.  They always come back to this house.  This old Victorian bungalow was built in 1899. It was designed by an architect as his first home.  As good fortune would have it, I am communicating with the original owners grandchildren.  This happened recently.  I am communicating with the original owner as well.  As I said, they always come back.  This house was built from red cypress hewned at the mill across the road which was next to the graveyard.  When a house is made of wood, it contracts and expands depending on the weather. Old houses talk.

There was so much activity in this house over the years.  When someone died they were "waked" in the front room.  There's a long hallway and on each side is a living room and a parlor.  The living room is called the front room, sometimes.  This is where the coffin was and folks stayed up all night with the deceased.   They walked right across the street to the family plot and buried them the next day.  Sometimes they come back.  They don't have far to go. 

I'm not afraid to stay here by myself.  I'm never really alone.  Mama and I spent every night together lighting many candles on the hall table.  We'd talk about the day's activities and about the old days.  Sometimes she'd tell me stories.  Mama was a good story-teller.  She didn't have to make anything up.   We could sometimes hear  footsteps in the hallway or a car rolling down the long driveway. A few times my music boxes would start playing music by themselves.  Someone plucked on my guitar strings. There would be no one there.  At least, no one we could see. 

I'm glad for that time spent here these last few years.  I think in ways mama was preparing me for a time when she would not be in this house with me.  At least, not in a physical form.  When I was a teenager, I was deathly afraid of seeing a "ghost".  I'd actually walk down this long 40 foot hallway to the bathroom with my eyes closed.  Mama said it's the live ones that you should fear, not the dead ones.  It took me years to realize that she was right.  Now I walk down that hallway  from my bedroom  with only the last of the candles flickering. My eyes are wide open.  I am hoping to see mama again.