The House on Grace Street is No More.
Hello human family,
This is my first blog entry ever and I’m feeling rather happy about it. I am a writer and I deem this to be a great way to gather my thoughts and share them with others.
Today as I write this, I am caught up in a wave of memories. I went to my old neighborhood today and walked by the place where I spent the first seven years of my life. I noticed that some of my friend’s houses were still standing. I also saw the quaint, little, white church with red doors still standing majestically on a nearby corner. But as I approached the place where I first tasted this sweet life, I discovered it was gone. Consider this writing to be something akin to an obituary; I am writing about the memory of a beautiful house where once upon a time, a little girl named Helena Marie lived.
There were shingles on the front walls. On the left next to the porch, there once grew a great big bush that was heavily laden with small white flowers. In front of that bush was a row of rocks that had been neatly placed. There were a couple of times I saw my mother sitting on the front porch painting. On the corner there was a tavern where they sold Bazooka bubble gum for 3 cents a piece and Nutty Buddie ice creams for 35 cents. As a little girl I used to pick flowers from the back yard and give them to my mom. It was in the back yard around sunset that my brother once spilled a plate of spaghetti on my head.
I used to sit in the dining room and listen to old records from the 1960’s. My favorites were Melanie "Born to Be" and a couple of Donovan ones. I remember the song "Tambourine Man". I used to sing along and make every attempt to sound like Melanie. I remember songs like "Sunshine Superman" and "Mellow Yellow"
On the wall along the stairs, there hung pictures of my brother Jay when he was a baby and my brother Marcus, as a toddler. My poor brother Marcus never made it to his third birthday; he passed away in 1973 at the tender age of two and a half. He died from lymphoma. I never had a chance to meet him in this life because when I came into this world, he was already gone. I like to think of him as my guardian angle, my big brother watching over me from the heavens.
I have many more memories from this sacred place I call my first home. I will continue to write about them so I can keep the memory of the house on Grace street alive. This way, I will always find the door open and waiting for me to walk through once again. God bless you all and thanks for reading.
Sincerely Helena Marie
February 23rd, 2006 at 9:27 am
Helena, this is fantastic! A wonderfully-rendered obituary, indeed. I always enjoy your writing.