Moving memories

Every night for the past few weeks as Sandy and I crawl under the covers and snuggle up for another night’s sleep, we are serenaded from out of the past.
Almost like clockwork the big band sounds from the 1940s lull us to sleep – speaking to us from a bygone era. It’s a pleasant change from the monotonous thump, thump, thump that emanates nightly from the bar down the street.
The music wafts from the bedroom next to ours where Leonard Flemmons, or Grandy as we all call Sandy’s grandfather, prepares to settle down for the night. I normally hate to be disturbed by any noise when I try to sleep. But this I don’t mind.
I find the music soothing, more so in my understanding that it comforts Grandy and takes him back in time – to his time – a time that defined a generation. Grandy is pushing 88 years this month. But in his eyes and in the recesses of his memories he’s in his 20s again.
The war was just a small part of his life, but now in his waning years it looms larger than ever. It’ll be two years come August since Jean, his bride of 60 years, passed away. But lately his thoughts aren’t on his loss, but what he gained by serving his country in England during World War II. He talks of planes, bombs and a girl who wants him – or at least an American in uniform – even though the debutant is way out of his league.
Sometimes we talk about it, but mostly I just listen, soaking up the stories like a dry sponge. Sometimes I catch glimpses of him picking up treasures off a shelf or out of a foot locker, losing himself in the moment and then struggling to decide if the item is a keeper or not.
It’s hard for him, but he has known this day would come. The house my family now occupies in Rosenberg is his house. He has been there since 1963 – long before Sandy and I were born. (OK, not so long for me, but 10 years for Sandy.)
Living by himself in the four-bedroom ranch house has become a bit much. A nice retirement community beckons him, though he’s not ready to give up his home. By having us as caretakers, he can keep his home and move to the place where many of his friends have gone.
The plan sounds simple in principle, but takes an emotional toll in practice. The apartment is small; room enough for necessities and memories. The objects associated with the memories have to go. Family claims some of the treasures. The Salvation Army and eBay divide the rest.
The hardest room to deal with is the back bedroom. It was an ad-on shortly after they moved in. After Jean passed it became “the man cave.” At holiday gatherings the men folk congregate back there, watch sports, sip brandy and brag, scheme and solve all the world’s problems.
Now it’s my bedroom. It has been emptied, the wood paneled walls cleansed from years of cigarette smoke and decades of grime scrubbed from unreachable corners of the tile floor.
The room sparkles like a new penny, save for the crack in the floor that Hurricane Ike put there last year. The man and his things may be gone, but the memories linger. They will never leave as long as that old house continues to hold the foundation together.
Grandy is happy in his new apartment. Yes, he misses the house, just as we miss having him here. But his home is our house now. It is slowly becoming our home. And just like he has done, we are pulling boxes out of storage, determining the keepers and relegating the rest to charity and eBay.
It’s not easy to do. Some of these things have been with me for 10, 20, up to 40 years. I can’t imagine what it’s like to part with things after a lifetime. I commend him for doing it and for the graceful way in which it was done.
The nights are quiet once again. The sounds of Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller and the like still resonate in my head, though audibly replaced by the thumping noise from the bar. I look forward to the memories to be made and the living yet to be done in this house. Life, indeed, does go on.